Monsoon Wedding: Made for Our Times, With a Heart That Parties Like Our Parents

Any art is only as good as its ability to reinvent itself, and it is doubtless that Mira Nair is a great artist.

In our country, the rain doesn't fall pitter-patter, and Mira Nair knows that.

The first song in Monsoon Wedding: The Musical opens up the world of the Vermas of South Delhi to the audience watching at the theater at New York’s St. Ann’s Warehouse. “Rain is coming, piya, tip tip tapur, piya,” it goes.

Those who have watched the 2001 Golden Lion-winning film, know the characters well — there’s P.K. Dubey (Namit Das), cousin Riya (Sharvari Deshpande), the bride Aditi (Salena Qureshi), her parents Pimmi and Lalit (Palomi Ghosh, Gagan Dev Riar), and a whole host of uncles and aunties. The story is familiar, too, but it’s not all the same.

Art — any art — is only as good as its ability to reinvent itself through and for the times, and it is doubtless that Mira Nair is a great artist.

Back in 2001, Monsoon Wedding hit us like a gut punch. In an industry churning out close to a thousand films a year, each talking about love and marriage in one way or the other, Nair’s was the first to complicate the sacred seat of family and present a nuanced idea of love and marriage, especially “arranged” marriage.

The musical was first staged in 2017 in Berkeley, California, to lukewarm reviews. What followed was an intense reworking in the hands of Nair, Sabrina Dhawan (the film’s screenwriter), Arpita Mukherjee (who wrote the book for the musical) and lyricists Masi Asare and Susan Birkenhead.

The crew met on and offline across Delhi, London, and Doha, where the musical played for a limited run during the World Cup.

“You have to know the rules first before you can dismantle them,” Nair said after a show in New York. The American musical theater canon has a specific technique: the first song, the world of the play comes together, the second song acquaints the audience with the characters’ wishes, and so on. These were all rules Nair had to learn. Rules that are entirely different from the language of cinema.

Yet, this is a homecoming for Nair. When I was in college in Delhi, acting in fledgling plays across the city, a black and white photo by Pablo Bartholomew did the rounds. Mira Nair as Cleopatra, Shashi Tharoor as Anthony, both in college then, holding hands.

At Harvard, Nair won a prize for her performance in a production of Seneca's Oedipus. “Theatre is where I come from,” she said, and yet, this is all very different.

“The main difference is that theater is live; utterly and completely and viscerally live,” she said. “The only way to make it and then evaluate it, and then to shape it, is to see it live in front of you.” It’s like Zen, she claims, witnessing the ephemerality of a passing gesture, an expression, and a musical note.

Away from the tricks of camera that a movie camera allows you, a small change in theatre creates a ripple of changes. “There’s the orchestra, the musicians, the pulse points, the cues. In a moment, there are about 75 people who have to be working with me to make that change.”

The musical plays out in a set that is both wide and high, draped in cloth the color of fresh marigolds — people walk up and down the stairs to get to the mainstage, and there is a live orchestra that sits on either side.

When you come in, a live wedding band greets you. Sometimes, Nair joins in as a baraati and shakes a leg. Vishal Bharadwaj’s music takes cues from Mychael Danna’s film score and with the dhol, tabla, sitar, and a humongous trumpet, Monsoon Wedding: The Musical makes you forget your world in New York. (They even make it rain like the Indian monsoon on stage. Yes, actual rain!)

It is, however, a world where, unlike in 2001, everyone has an opinion on Indian arranged marriages thanks to reality TV. But that’s not something Nair was necessarily concerned about.

“For me, it’s always about holding a mirror to our society, in all my work. Asking, what is really going on? And that was that,” she said. Back in 2000, India was on the cusp of globalization and we had uncles in Monsoon Wedding smoking cigars in dinner parties while aunties quoted shayari with a glass of whiskey in hand.

2023 is a world away from 2001 and the musical bends itself to fit the times. There is a more pronounced depiction of gender queerness, stronger women who stand up for themselves, and, most importantly, a family of strong women who come together to question the patriarchy and its many violences. While the film celebrates femininity, the musical goes a step ahead and makes demands of masculinity.

Monsoon Wedding: The Musical is very much of a world where women continue to come out against their oppressors, risking their careers and reputations.

“Twenty years ago, we didn't design the film to make that happen. But it happened everywhere in every country, but especially in ours. This lid of silence [over abuse] was just taken out. And that was a beautiful surprise, and a very cathartic one for all of us who made the film,” Nair said.

She recognised that what Riya (Shefali Shah) does in the film is something many other women were already doing, and moved on to imagine a world where the entire family comes together to stand by a survivor. “It’s not itni si baat anymore and the musical had to show that.”

There are reworkings throughout the script — as is natural — but the essence of boundless joy that is inherent in the film and the lives it portrays, remains intact in the musical.

That centrepiece of “Chunari Chunari” (who can forget Neha Dubey grinding with Ram Kapoor?) has been updated with “Passori,” a song that is equally joyful but is way more globally recognised. That little Bengali vs Punjabi jibe from the film is gone but will probably be back for audiences that get that nuance.

It is very much a musical made for its people; to make them cry, laugh, clap, and eventually break into a song and dance.

Everyone else is invited (as in a big, fat Punjabi wedding) to come in and partake of it, of course. Most Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu words stay untranslated and there is a play booklet with a glossary of words.

“Among the film’s many themes, which is the most important to you?,” a young member of the audience asked Nair after the performance. “Masti,” she replied, “that complete immersion in happiness and joy.” “What you saw that night, it's not possible to see that again, it’s only in that moment. And I love that about making theater,” Nair said to me.