For The Love Of Bharati In Bharat
To date, Bombay Dreams has been staged only in this country and the U.K. But a musical extravaganza called Merchants of Bollywood toured Australia in 2005, as Khabar noted, and it has just finished a run in London. Another Broadway-style show inspired by Indian movies is making the rounds in Europe, although what's different now is that the new musical, Bharati, is touring Continental Europe, where it recently completed 160 performances. Countries on the itinerary include Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Spain and Switzerland. Earlier, it was staged in Israel. A North American tour is in the works, but no dates have been announced yet.
A U.S.-based engineer, who's more of a Nerve-Racking Indian than a Non-Resident Indian, arrives in India/Bharat and falls for Bharati, a winsome beauty who "awakens in Siddharth a yearning to connect with his own roots." Siddharth, who has come to work on the Ganga Cleaning Project, is slowly but surely transformed by, yes, the Power of Love. Songs, naturally, form the backbone of the musical, which is thematically held together with the use of a narrator. Bollywood numbers have been rearranged to appeal to a wider, particularly Western, audience. The instruments used are Indian, although 20 violin players have been included. Apart from male and female choirs, individual singers perform on the stage to the accompaniment of live and recorded music. Altogether, reportedly, 50 musicians have been involved in the shaping of the show.
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