East Side

“I wanted to do something which could collaborate with the audience directly,” said Vaidya. He chose the traditional Japanese benshi art form and gave it a contemporary touch. “It is not a film but a direct and abstract interpretation of one. It will often remind you of the works of Woody Allen,” he described.

For audiences who had watched Purab aur Paschim earlier,it was difficult to get involved in the narration initially. “I was reminded of the original movie several times. One needs to really focus when watching this art form,” said Chhavi Malik,a student present at the performance. “Benshi is a performance which requires an active set of people who can be engrossed in the narration. We need to make the characters so strong that they surpass the original ones. The narration,voice modulation,timing and storyline should be very tight,” explained Vaidya. It takes him two years to write a script for a benshi narration. He then practises the narration and memorises the lines several times for the right timing so as to be in-sync with the characters.

Vaidya feels that there’s a certain spark in a live medium like benshi. “The live medium is the greenest way of making an art form. Film-making involves resources which affect the economy and ecology of a nation,” Vaidya added. He is currently developing a hand video camera which will be solar powered,for his next documentary. “We will use minimum electricity for the post production of our films once our video camera is made,” he said. Vaidya is also working on Sitayana,the narration of Ramayana from Sita’s perspective. It will be a three-act benshi performance where Rama only enters in the last act. “I do not look for clips. It is a cycle of images which comes automatically,” he said. His fascination for Bollywood of the 1960s and 70s will be evident in Sitayana though. “Their overwhelming acts are a treat for the narrator,” he said.