Castle of Despair - A Social Stage Play
Dramatis Personae:
Rajiv: Forty year old businessman.
Ramya: Rajiv’s thirty-five-year-old wife.
Deva: Rajiv’s thirty-five-year old businessman friend
Divya: Deva’s thirty year old wife and Ramya’s close friend.
Rau: Forty year old lawyer and Rajiv’s long lost friend.
Inspector Slesha: Rau’s thirty-year old wife.
Nayak: Fifty-year-old lawyer and Rajiv’s friend.
Raju: Forty-five year-old Bank Manager and a friend of Rajiv.
Dr. Aslam: The Rajivs’ fifty-five year old family physician.
Rangaiah: The sixty-five year old servant at the Rajivs’ house.
Scene – 1
[Curtains Up: The Rajivs’ well-furnished drawing room at the right side with an adjoining bedroom on the left side. A backside opening in the drawing room connects the rest of the backstage bungalow. Rangaiah is seen in the drawing room dusting the furniture.]
[Enter: Rajiv with briefcase in one hand and cell phone in the other tucked to the ear.]
Rajiv: Rangaiah, has Bank Manager Raju called on the landline?
Rangaiah: No, Rajiv babu.
Rajiv: Is Ramya at home?
Rangaiah: No babu, she has gone out with Divya beti.
[Rangaiah goes backstage and Rajiv continues to redial on the cell phone. Rangaiah returns with a glass of water that Rajiv takes.]
Rangaiah: You know you are more than my lost son to me.
Rajiv: Don’t I feel free with you than I was with my father? Why, you are a confident of sorts to me from childhood. But why do we need to vouch for all that now?
Rangaiah: If you don’t get angry I want to say something.
Rajiv: What’s holding you?
Rangaiah: I’m scared of the new Rajiv babuin you.
Rajiv: What do you mean?
Rangaiah: I see you are a changed man all charged up for the pipes project. What’s the need for you to bother about it being a landlord yourself? Moreover, you have a flourishing steel business as well. You know how uncomfortable Ramya betiis about your obsession.
Rajiv: Rangaiah, you are living in a world that time had left behind and Ramya is unable to step into the new one despite my pushing and prodding. Nowadays landlords are passé and businessmen still carry the shopkeeper tag. Industry is the in-thing but its dog- eats- the-dog out there. Realize that the gentleman of leisure your late master was is a dead species now.
[Enter: Raju with his briefcase.]
Raju: Sorry Rajiv.
Rajiv: Raju,I was really mad with you. Ask Rangaiah if you don’t believe me.
[Rangaiah greets Raju and goes backstage.]
Rajiv: You were not at the bank and your cell is ever engaged.