Before I start my review , let me tell everyone that this was the first ’proper’ play that I have ever seen in my life . Sure , I have seen small skits in school & college and all that , but I had never been to the theatres before in my 28 years . So I do not have other plays to compare this one with . There might be much better plays than this one , I don’t know . All I can say is , if there are better plays than this .....then I have definetly missed out on something in my life . I had wanted to watch ’’The Class of 84 ’’ for quite some time now .. Quite a lot of people had watched it , liked it and had recommended the same to me . But I never got around to gathering enough enthusiasm to go and watch it . But that was sometime ago . I got married recently and my wife is someone who is interested in plays etc . She’s not from Mumbai and so when she evinced an interest to go watch the play , ’The class of 84 ’ was the first thing that came to my mind . I wasnt sure if it was still running and I used to scour the newspapers daily to see if the play was still on but never used to see any ads for it . Then one day , I saw an ad saying that there was a performance at St Andrews on Sunday . ’’Perfect’’ , I thought and immediately went and booked the tickets for the same . The tickets are a bit expensive and I really hoped that it would be worth it since I was sacrificing watching either Sarkar or Dus with our ’’limited’’ monthly entertainment budget . I am happy to say that it was worth every single paisa !!!! If you have ever been part of a ’’college gang’’ in Mumbai or any other town for that matter and over the years have drifted apart from some or all of them , this play will most definetly touch a chord with you . The story is about 8 friends who were part of a gang in St Xaviers college almost 20 years ago . They all have drifted apart over the years ,leading their own lives and having their own set of problems . Then one of them dies and the remaining 7 come together to attend his funeral . They decide to spend a few hours together after the funeral and that is where the play is set up . Jojo , the friend who died was the leader of the group in college . He was the activist among them , taking up social causes , leading rallies and generally rebelling against the establishment. Raveena (Radhika Da Cunha ,I think!!) is the bored housewife of Sanjay (RituRaj ), who constantly feels stifled being just a housewife and that there is a lot more she can offer to the world than just going to parties with her bigshot husband and posing for pictures . Sanjay who used to be a passionate communist type in college , is now a pakka capitalist and is a bigshot at Citibank . He’s ’’a banker by day , and a banker by night’’ is how Raveena describes him Raghu is the angry ,out of work Mallu filmmaker who has the underworld on his tail Bobby (Rajat Kapur) is a TV actor who has a detective serial on air . He’s always on his mobile phone with the filmi types . Cyrus is a rich hippy parsi , always smoking pot . He doesnt do any kind of work and is always on a high Sarah is a page3 gossip columnist , who eats men for breakfast/lunch/dinner . Fuzzy (shenaz patel) is the slow one in the group, always late to catch on jokes .She’s really into stuff like Feng shui ,art of living etc . The group relives past experiences , talk about their individual lives , remember their friend Jojo and over the course of the night , realize how far apart they have grown , the value of friendship and grow closer together . Come to think of it , there isn’t much of a story . But the witty one liners , the typical characters , the experiences they had with each other , all touch a chord in you and takes you back in time . The acting of course is first class . Rajat Kapur & Radhika Da Cunha were the best . Shenaz Patel as the bumbling Fuzzy is excellent . Rituraj and the guy who played Raghu just got a bit too carried away at one or 2 places ,but they were good too . All in all it was a wonderful experience and hats off to Rahul Da Cunha and the gang !!! If possible go with a group of long time friends , catch up on old times!!

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