Jugaad, Maharashtra Cultural Centre’s new Marathi play, focuses on the struggle for power and social mobilisation Our New Year kicked off with yet another lesson in history and identity politics. The Koregaon-Bhima riots told us that a 200-year-old battle can still create rifts in society. It’s certainly not a new issue for a caste-ridden society like ours. But it’s worrisome how these battles are picked, and the stories are given a spin. Especially, as history is now another ‘holy cow’ that cannot be questioned. This is incidentally also a dialogue from the Marathi play Jugaad, written and directed by Nitin Agnihotri. Advocate Hanmantrao (brilliantly played by Chinmay Mandlekar) belonging to the Nalmachi tribe from a fictitious hamlet, seeks out history professor Vilasrao (Hrishikesh Joshi, superb), luring him with an offer to write a short story set in the hamlet and then willy-nilly persuading him to pen a piece documenting their lives. Eventually, Hanmantrao compels the pr...
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