The Hindu, November 23, 2005
Kids World and its driving force, the Lushin Dubey-Bubbles Sabharwal team, are well-known names in the world of children’s theatre. The year 2005 has been a landmark for Kids World in that children of different age groups from five to 12 years integrated with the youth of 20-24 years, underlining the plus points of each group.
It was a worthwhile experience that paid off. What is more, the three plays, presented back to back, as it were, took off from plays that are popular with children, particularly from public schools. "Wizwits" for instance, is a take-off on Roald Dahl’s "Witches" that Kids World has contemporised and also written the lyrics and set the music for. "Matilda" too was a take-off on a book of the same title by Roald Dahl.
This time too, the lyrics as also the stage version were written by Kids World. For both these presentations, music was composed by an old associate of Kids World, Babush Joe Santama, who certainly had his fingers on the children’s pulse.
Mowgli in the city
The last presentation of the year, "Jungle Book Se Aage", as the title suggests, takes off from where the old story ends. It is a story collectively conceived by Kids World and scripted by Piyush Mishra, who is one of our best parody writers, lyricists and composers of contemporary Hindi theatre, and so it was but natural that "Jungle Book Se Aage" should take off from where the Jungle Book left off and take Mowgli from the harmony and peace of a jungle straight into the chaos and disharmony of the city jungle we live in, where Mowgli for the first time meets a human.
What an experience it can be for him can well be imagined. As we go along, Piyush through his lyrics, beautifully sung and danced by the cast, asks Mowgli’s new friends to be careful while bathing him: "Dheeme dheeme/Hoale, hoale dhona Mowgli ko/Aya hai Jungle Book se/Barah inch ke dhool lipte dhona Mowgli ko…" or when Mowgli hears the sadhus singing and dancing down the street: "Om Baba Tantanadheesh/ Shreshtham, bahut Shreshtham/Tinde ki bhaaji mein/Bhindi ki sabzi mein bharta ka bhartham. Or again when the policemen at their usual tricks marching down the street sing, "Mein bhindi ka bachcha/Adha Pukka adha kachcha/kyon hoon zinda/O! My dear whisky beer/ Mujh ko butla de koi/ jis se ho jaun satisfied/ O dilli guide/ O meri ho gai hai side. And so it goes on.
The play has a number of lyrics that have a flavour and colour of their own. Thanks to Piyush Mishra’s scripts and lyrics, Norbu Tshering’s choreography and the fusion between the actors and the dancers, "Jungle Book Se Aage" and of course the two director’s untiring energy make Kids World one of the foremost children’s theatre groups in Delhi. But it is time, one feels, it took on a permanent shape like that of a club with regular membership working all the year at two or three centres spread over the city.
It may sound like a dream, but seeing the commitment of the twosome, it can be a possibility.