Living

Amit Ohdedar is co-founder and president of Prayas Theatre, a company formed 18 years ago to perform South Asian theatre. By day, he works for an air conditioning company, but theatre remains his passion – he is currently working on a production of a classic Sanskrit play written in the 5th Century. He lives with his wife Salima in Goodwood Heights, Manukau.

AMIT We used to live in the front house, and we built this one in 2009 because of the view. I love looking through the binoculars at the steel mill and the two windmills way in the distance [Karioitahi]. And we get lovely sunsets here, although it is pretty exposed.

It’s a big room, and we sometimes do play readings and rehearsals here, and my wife, Salima, has a book club which meets here.

I have several special personal items here that came with me from Calcutta [Kolkata] in 1994 when we emigrated. They are part of my family history.

My father was orphaned at a very early age and he and his brother were brought up by his widowed aunt, who became my grandmother. If my father had gone to the orphanage, my accident of birth would probably not have happened. So I owe a lot of who I am to that lady.

I have this lovely photo of her, and I have a diary here she wrote in 1952, in Bengali, about her life. She got married at the age of 9 in an arranged marriage as they did in those days, and became a widow at a very tender age.

She made these three very detailed rag doll figures called sadhus [holy figures] that are still with me. One is Krishna, and the others are rishis.

Another gift I cherish is from my father-in-law, who had been to Palestine to meet Yasser Arafat back in the 90s. This beautifully decorated shell box was a gift from that gentleman, and it is special to me, as that part of the world has one of the largest unresolved conflicts, as we are seeing right now.

Another thing that is very dear to me is a colonial map of India written in Hindi. And we have Pasifika art. We consider ourselves very lucky to have been able to make our home in this country.

The horse sculptures carved in timber are from Bengal. I brought those back from a trip – we go back to India every second year as my wife has lots of family there. And I still have a family home there.

I have taken to cooking [lamb curry is a specialty]. I always had an interest, because I was an only child. A lot of the time I spent in my mother’s kitchen because she would cook, and I would help at a very young age. As you grow you lose that touch, then I rediscovered my love for cooking coming here. I think I’ve got some muscle memory from those days. Some of those little tricks come back.

We’ve been running the Prayas Theatre company since 2005, and I never thought it would carry on for years. But I am pleasantly surprised how it has grown, and the interest we get.

I did have an interest in film and theatre in India, but there is a lot of work pressure over there – and day-to-day life is a lot tougher, so there wasn’t time to do much. Here, I found I had spare time to start a group. I speak Bengali, the same as in Bangladesh, and we had a reasonable number of people here speaking the language.

After four to five years our theatre was doing well, but performing in Bengali was restrictive, so we started doing South Asian theatre in English to transcend that language barrier.

One of the reasons we started doing this was because Kiwis saw Indian culture in terms of Bollywood, butter chicken and guru mystics. Indian culture is so much more. This play we are doing now was written in the 5th Century – it took me a long time to find a good translation, and it’s one that was written 100 years ago.

The Clay Cart story is a social drama from that time, and it is so very relevant for today, which is exciting.

Prayas Theatre’s The Clay Cart, a renowned Sanskrit story on love, betrayal and hope, plays at TAPAC, Motions Rd, Auckland until December 8.