Ek Chhota goldflake is a play which takes place amongst friends. Amongst friends who meet over chai and hardly know that they sound theatrical in nature. Or that it’s almost like living theatre.
For me, the group ‘chai times’ have been intriguing. Even as I sat talking with my friends I felt that it has a great potential to work as a theatre piece, and it actually does! Subconsciously, unknowingly.
Much without my friends notice, ever since the idea of writing about it struck my mind, I have kept it to myself because I wanted my friends to be least concerned about the fact that they were being observed.
The idea of us meeting over tea and talk about our day to day musings fascinates me. Though the links to the conversations are loose, and unplanned, that’s what works best for these times. People are free to talk about what they want to.
To me this is theatre too. It is generally believed that it takes place on the other side of the stage, while for me; most of it has been through observing, spending time with people, knowing them.
As the play unfolds, one could see how friends discover themselves and others around them in college over tiny chit chats, over happy sad and common stories.
At a certain level it’s also about bonding and relationships. About seeking and giving space. About new and distorted friendships and differences. Also being there inspite of it.
Moreover, thankfully it is more real than the films which depict a happy college going geek’s life, which to me is much more complicated and simple in our day to day life.
I also realize that most of this is my way of seeing and perception of our chai times and that whatever has been captured in this play is just a fraction of what my friends are or what we end up bringing onto the table.
Also this text is constructed with a rhetorical perspective, to depict how I think we sound.
And thereby the Chhota Goldflake becomes a metaphor for these fleeting moments. And more so the smoke.
