About the Play

A half-blind, bumbling tea-seller in Delhi rises to become Prime Minister of India in this hilarious and hard-hitting satire on Indian democracy. Based on the 2007 novel The Peacock Throne, acclaimed by Time and The Guardian, the play is a grand farce, starting with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and ending with the election that threw up a hung parliament in 1989. Tucked amidst these momentous events is the tale of a humble and foolish tea-seller, whose rise to power is the bittersweet story of India itself. The play features spectacular sets, costumes and lights, along with live music by Nachiketa Yakkundi and his team, and dance by Niharika Mohanty, Deepa Mahadevan, Madhuri Kishore and their team. The whole play rhymes.

MR. INDIA is Naatak's 54th production and is the winner of a Knight Foundation award. It will be the largest production ever staged by Naatak. There will be as many as 50 people on stage, and we will perform as many as 13 shows. 

Language: Hindi with English supertitles | Run-time: 150 minutes
Children under 7 will not be admitted

Listen to Kamla Bhatt's interviews on KZSU Stanford with Sujit and Nachiketa.