"Aapré Canada nathi javaana…aapra natak jassé (We are not going to Canada…our plays will),” joked 84-year-old Surat-based dramatist Yazdi Karanjia while speaking to Parsiana on December 17, 2020. Members of Canada-based Friends of Gujarat and Gujarat Abroad (FGGA) savored two plays from Karanjia Arts, Mungi Stree on December 26 and Parsi Harishchandra on January 1, 2021, before their release on electronic media. "Before the lockdown began, they had invited us to perform in Canada…pann baddhu phuss thayi gayu (all plans were scuttled)” by the pandemic, quipped the humorist. Karanjia has been acting in and directing Gujarati comedies for seven decades.
Top: "Mentor" Yazdi Karanjia (l) with Farzan Karanjia;
above: posters of Farzan’s directorial ventures
"FGGA then requested us to recreate the two comedies digitally for them,” Karanjia’s nephew and director of the plays Farzan Karanjia told Parsiana on December 18. Karanjia Arts was set up by Farzan and has so far produced both comedies and socially relevant plays. "We have performed in Baroda, Ahmedabad, Bardoli, Calcutta, Gandhinagar,” he stated. "Yazdi kaka (paternal uncle) is my mentor,” he appreciated.
Yazdi stated about Farzan: "éné aa line ma aagal vadhvu chhè (he wants to further his career in directing).” For himself, the senior dramatist told Parsiana earlier this year, "I do not know whether I am an actor or a director… I have directed all the plays that I have acted in” (see "Doyen of drama,” Parsiana, July 7-July 20, 2020).
The senior dramatist reminisced that he has been performing these plays since the late 1950s. Each of the one-act plays will last for about 50 minutes, he said. "Saalu thodu navu laagu [(Mild expletive) it felt somewhat new],” stated Yazdi about the shoot. The cast, mostly members of Yazdi’s extended family, save one, rehearsed the two plays in a school auditorium for a month. "Pachhi baddhu Farzan é kidhu (Farzan did everything thereafter),” stated Yazdi. "Our purpose is to make people laugh…Even if the medium has changed… We did our best to adapt,” Yazdi was quoted in The Times of India of December 14.