Synopsis : The story is set in a local train platform in suburban Mumbai, with an adjoining slum. The motley crowd that inhabits the slum are Rahim, the local dada, a good samaritan with a heart of gold, in love with Radha, the belle who has many hearts wanting to beat in tune with hers. Belonging to differing faiths, their fear, that their respective families will never accept their love, is real.
`Mahim Junction’, The Musical, is a retro-Bollywood show of the time heroes wore their hearts on their sleeves and simpering heroines shimmied their way through Bombay’s mean streets. The ingredients of a quintessential 70s Bollyood movie are stirred, mixed and spiced up with a contemporary sensibility. The musical opened to a packed house as `Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan’, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002, where it won an award and was subsequently invited by the Arts Council of the U.K. for a five city British tour. Subsequently, the play held sold out shows in Singapore.
Since it's crowded premiere at the Hotel Ashok amphitheatre last december, the musical has held four houseful shows in Delhi.
Language : Hindi and English
Reviews :
Press Reviews In The U.K. :
(In its previous incarnation as `Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan in 2002-3)
If you are about to purchase a ticket for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest assault on culture, `Bombay Dreams’, then please don’t. The real action is in Edinburgh this August. Fringe shows do not come bigger than Sohaila Kapur’s `Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan…’
---Paul Dale- The List (Glasgow & Edinburgh Events Guide)
What Kapur and Roy have achieved is an engagingly vivid evocation of how life in India connects with Bollywood Films in more ways than just watching on screen escapist romance & adventure. The sheer energy of the musical numbers and its unexpected edge of political home truths might well surprise and delight you.
-----Mary Brennan - The Herald
The Traverse is the venue for the show that won this year’s Herald Devil awarded for embracing the spirit of the Fringe It went to a celebration of Bollywood, `Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan’.
-----Keith Bruce `The Herald’
All the passion and cheesy plot devices of classic Bollywood musical cinema has come to the Traverse in a production that sings, dances and even has a political edge! At every turn of the plot, the cast breaks out into song. Big allegorical numbers that turn the city’s dusty streets into paths by rivers of gold.
-----Thom Dibdin, `Edinburgh Evening News’
The bald headed energy with which `Yeh Hai Mumbai ….’ tackles this key subject of corruption in Indian politics, its links with the huge cash machine that is Bollywood and its connection with the deliberate incitement of tensions between the Hindu and Muslim Communities, make the show well worth seeing.
-----Joyce McMillan, `The Scotsman’
Reviews after the Indian premiere in Dec 2008:
'MAHIM JUNCTION’ - A BOLLYWOOD POTBOILER ON STAGE (Title)
New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) Projecting the lives of slum-dwellers living next to railway tracks as a window to the state of the nation, Sohaila Kapur's musical 'Mahim Junction' draws a portrait of Mumbai with a whirlwind resonance of the golden era of Indian cinema.
Set in idyllic times and wearing the guise of a Bollywood movie of yore…..; the musical is ….tweaked into contemporary Hinglish from its original English script. The retro fiesta ushers in matters like the politician-gangster nexus, corruption, socialism, trade unionism, communalism, mothers trading their actor-daughters to producers for money and love and lust through a traditional, epic style.
- Indo Asian News Service
FLASHBACK OF FUN (TITLE)
`.....The lead actors do a fine job in endearing themselves to the audience. This is to the credit of their histrionics and the director’s instructions. Tariq Vasudeva, who plays Johnny the alcoholic, benefits through some smart lines, but more so, because of his own convincing performance. Pallav Chander, not only makes Ayesha the cross-dresser his own, but makes her ours as well. Having donned the sari with grace and the provocative blouse with ease he sails through the show on a wave of talent. Karam and Jyotsana make a convincing couple in difficult love. With a large cast of nearly 20 actors, the stage is always a flurry of movement helping to create a Bombay platform.
A twist in the love story makes the plot suddenly relevant. Rahim is falsely accused of planting a bomb. A convenient scapegoat for political ambitions and personal vendetta, he finds himself in jail. The play adopts a voice for today’s time, by urging civil action and political reawakening.
- The Hindu
Comments by Celebrities :
Presenter Shekhar Kapur, Bafta winner & Oscar nominated director of `Elizabeth’
“I applaud Sohaila and her team for `Mahim Junction’. It is a fascinating premise for a musical and extremely entertaining without losing its inherent social comment on our urban lives. I am proud to be associated with this production.
I wish Sohaila and her team and all the members of the Hungry Heart Festival group luck and also congratulate them for a new wave in Indian Theatrical Experience”.
Satish Kaushik, Bollywood director of hits like `Tere Naam' & `Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai':
“ The musical is delightful, funny, meaningful & even contemporary, despite being rooted in the 1970s; with an ensemble of fine actors. Superb directorial achievement by Sohaila Kapur."
Poonam Saxena, Associate Editor, Hindustan Times & Editor, `Brunch’:
"I found the play enormously good fun, full of humour and energy. A must -see for anyone who loves Hindi films!"
Indu Mirani, Entertainment Editor, `Mumbai Mirror':
"The play encompasses so many facets of Bollywood of the 1970s, it is both, a crash course for beginners and a happy blast from the past for seniors. I loved it".
Presented by : Shekhar Kapur
Produced by : Monica Bhasin, Sohaila Kapur & Smita Bharti of the Hungry Heart Festival.
Written and Directed by : Sohaila Kapur
Music arranged and recorded by : Jitender Singh Jamwal
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