Yugandhar Deshpande

Commercial Marathi theatre is a happening scene, not just in Pune, but also in Mumbai. "Shows happen almost every day. So, imagine the impact the lockdown has had on this industry."

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Initially, Deshpande started the Instagram page to keep the merriment going. "The idea was to invite even the common man to send us videos, re-enacting famous dialogues or scenes from plays. But, I realised in order to make the page popular, I needed famous faces from the industry to send me their videos first." For the first few weeks, Deshpande has run videos of well known talent like Lalit Prabhakar, Manjiri Pupala who narrated Gulzar's story, Gaurav Ghatnekar who recited some stories in Urdu, and Swapnil Kulkarni who performed bhajans for the audience. "We also started doing live shows every day, and the page gained instant popularity. So now, we only feature Marathi artistes to keep the theatre alive."

Within just two months, the page has about 1,030 followers and over 113 posts. "We also recently did lavani baithaks, which were a big hit. But my favourite performances include Mayuresh and Vipul Kale's mime act and Aarti More's puppet act. She used puppets to depict the life of an actor in quarantine. It was truly a beautiful performance," he adds, saying, "A big vacuum has been created due to the Coronavirus, people are craving live performances. I still feel the Instagram page is just a compromised platform to keep all artistes and viewers connected. Watching a theatre performance live, however, is a different experience altogether."

Instagram: @corona_theatre_

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