Guru of Chai

Jacob Rajan in Guru of Chai (photo by Robert Catto/supplied)

By Elissa Blake  

The Global Financial Crisis wasn’t a great time to be making theatre, recalls actor and writer Jacob Rajan.

Even in distant New Zealand, the ripples from the collapse of confidence in the banking and finance system shook the economy hard. Unemployment surged to 6 per cent, with women and young people disproportionately affected by the downturn.

“We couldn’t get anyone to come out to the theatre,” says the Wellington-based Rajan. “So we designed a show to go to people’s houses. We would rock up to your house about two hours before showtime, clear out the living room furniture and install an entire theatre set with dimmable lights and all the bells and whistles. Then all your friends would come over to see us perform.”

That show was Guru of Chai.

“It’s loosely based on an Indian folk tale called Punchkin,” Rajan says. “Justin [Lewis, director] and I came across it when we were looking for ideas for a children’s show but it was a little bit too dark, I thought, a bit like the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales. There was stuff in it I wasn’t comfortable with my own children hearing. But it kinda got under our skins so we decided to make an adult show.”

Rajan and Lewis, who founded NZ’s Indian Ink Theatre Company, disassembled the story of seven princesses abandoned in the jungle by their father, the king, and reset the action in Bangalore’s bustling railway station.  “Suddenly, the story had a Slumdog Millionaire grit to it and it became a romantic thriller,” Rajan says.

The tale is narrated by Rajan in the guise of a bucktoothed chai seller named Kutisah. Over 90 minutes, he tells the story of the seven sisters who sing for coins in the railway station. Their voices and their beauty win them many admirers, Kutisah tells us, none more ardent than a station policeman, Punchkin, who assumes the role of their protector. In doing so, he begins a meteoric rise to power. 

“The Guru’s schtick is that he promises to take the audience away from everything that is wrong with your life during the show,” Rajan says. “Hopefully for an hour and a half, he does.”

Rajan isn’t alone on stage. The production also features a live soundtrack, composed and played by multi-instrumentalist Adam Ogle. “All our shows have at least one live musician,” Rajan says. “It’s one of our philosophies. In this show we have given him a character - the Guru’s mute sidekick. He’s the western Indiaphile who has adopted everything Indian and he’s taken a vow of silence. He can sing but he can’t talk. He’s a bit like Dame Edna’s friend Marge.”

After performing the show in lounge rooms in Auckland and Wellington, Guru became a hot property. “We got picked up very early on by an American agent so we’ve actually toured more in the United States than we have in New Zealand,” Rajan says.

The production has also played in Australia, in Brisbane and in the Parramasala Festival in Parramatta in 2010. Seven years on, it returns to play in Belvoir’s Downstairs Theatre.

“I’m really looking forward to playing in a small theatre where we get that original sense of intimacy back again,” says Rajan, who gives voice to 17 characters during Guru of Chai as well as operating puppets, performing magic tricks and brewing up pots of chai.

“A lot of the surprise for people is how much they are transported with so little,” says Rajan. “The audience is doing a lot of the work with their imaginations and they don’t even realise it until it’s over. That is my sweet spot for theatre. That is what I love.”

Guru of Chai has been something of a constant in Rajan’s life for the past decade. Without it, he says, “I would have done nothing but play Indian doctors on TV.”

“I graduated from The New Zealand Drama School in 1994, and I was the first Indian student to come out of it,” says Rajan, who migrated to New Zealand from Malaysia aged four, with his parents,

“I told my tutors I didn’t think I’d get much work but they were very encouraging, telling me that the world was moving towards colour-blind casting. But that wasn’t the case for me. The phone didn’t ring. So I decided to create my own works and thankfully, people have been interested in what I have to say.”

Guru of Chai plays at Belvoir Downstairs, Surry Hills from May 16-June 4, 2017.

This story was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald on May 5, 2017.