Play Review: Yugant by Gerish Khemani

I watched Yugant at Prithvi Theatre, starring the fabulous Barkha Fatnani and Ajinkya Ovhal.

The play is heavy. It requires a lot of thought to process and hold. Gerish seems to have some kind of mastery of patience and thairav—of knowing when to let a moment sit. The play's visuals leave more to be desired, but that seems to be an artistic choice.

It is ironically interesting that the play was performed during an El Niño in Mumbai, where the rains had been delayed. Perhaps that made some of what the play was exploring resonate a little more immediately.

The beauty of the play, for me, is the famine—the stripped barrenness of the world. There is something very effective about how little there is, and what that absence allows the play to hold. The calling of home and the idea of what home is; the people that define an identity and the holding onto that identity despite the conditions.

The beauty of the play is also in how it questions science and the human ego that creates barrenness.

One idea that stays with me is that we create a perfect human through gene modification, but leave no world, or nothing, for that human to inhabit. I do believe this idea could have been anchored more strongly in the storytelling. It is such a compelling contradiction that I wanted the play to push further into it.

And yet, I did find myself wondering.

Perhaps that is the job of the artist—to enable questions.

Another strong idea in the play is the idea of home and the idea of loss. Does one hold onto loss to hold onto home? Or is loss a state of home? I found myself thinking about this contradiction quite a bit after the play.

I also really enjoyed the conversation and contradiction around what is left versus who can take accountability. There is something particularly interesting in the tension between the remnants of a world and the question of responsibility for those remnants.

I think the script and story are beautiful. There is a certain quality to the writing that demands the kind of patience Gerish brings to it. Gerish finds home in the script, in a way, and treats it with the kind of thairav it demands.

The performances are also brilliant. Barkha Fatnani and Ajinkya Ovhal carry the weight of the material with a great deal of restraint, and that feels right for a play that gives its ideas so much space. Hrishabh Kanti as the central protagonist and Jaimin Thakkar do well, but deliver mixed performances that didn't move me. 

The set and costume are minimal, yet symbolic. The set really captures the beautiful barrenness of the world. I particularly enjoyed the opening exploration of the elongated sari. There was something beautiful in that visual language, although I did find myself wishing the visual could have been pushed further.

There is a lot to think about in Yugant. It is a play that asks you to sit with ideas of home, loss, identity, science, what is left, and who is responsible for what remains.

Curtain Call of Yugant by Gerish Khemani, performed at Prithvi Theatre, 16 June 2026