THE PLAY’S THE THING
HAPPY RANAJIT 35 PLAYWRIGHT
Happy Ranajit has an interesting anecdote about his name. Bishnu Charan Sahoo’s family was living in misery in Odisha’s Kalyanpur town, but things took a turn for the better after the birth of the second son as he got a job as an English professor. Saying the boy was a good omen, he named him Happy. Sahoo also played a crucial role in moulding the boy’s mind, directing him to the English classics at a young age. That, in turn, influenced his chosen career path. After passing out from the National School of Drama (NSD) in 2008, he chose to stay on in Delhi and focus on theatre. In 2013, after the Supreme Court rejected an appeal to repeal Article 377 (relating to homosexuality being a crime), he wrote a play dealing with the issue. Sure enough, A Straight Proposal created ripples in theatre circles and got six nominations at the 2015 METAs (Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards), including in the best director and original script category for Happy.
This wasn’t his first tryst with the awards. In 2010, he had won the best actor award for Roop Aroop, a two-character play on the life of Nautanki actors written and directed by Tripurari Sharma, where his co-star was his actress wife Gauri Dewal. Veteran actor Teekam Joshi, who did one of the main roles in A Straight Proposal, says, “Happy had written it with such conviction that I knew the play would be a success. He’s been able to break the Hindi theatre box-office jinx.” Happy’s theatre skills were again on display when the Kingdom of Dreams venue in Gurgaon near Delhi, produced his musical comedy play Love ka Overdose, based on Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Happy also has a story about how he got into NSD. Apparently, father Sahoo had trained his elder brother Bapi Vishwajeet for admission rather rigorously. Call it a coincidence, but both brothers landed at the same workshop for the interview. When the interviewer said that only one of them could be selected, Bapi had said, “Take Happy then.” Even today Ranajit gets emotional when he recalls that moment.
“Happy gave me a big role in A Straight Proposal, letting a novice like me share the stage with major stars. Now I assist him and even direct my own plays” Junaid Kaifi, 25, theatre personality and son of a tea vendor