Much like interactions with any organic entity, Prayas has given me some truly memorable times.

There are thousands of on-stage and off-stage, behind the scenes over the last 15 years that make me wistfully smile to myself.

From doing the male cast members makeup for a show in which I’m about to perform; cracking my elbow in a fall on stage on dress rehearsal; being blacked-out just as I was going to take the line one step too far; confiscating phones backstage as the stage manager; acting on Queen Street with my 2 year old daughter as she performed in a Prayas show for Diwali and meeting the many, many, many wonderful people that have been driven with one common goal (whether they knew it or not when they first joined).

But I’ve started the Prayas story looking back at the activities, when my most stark memory is of my relationship with its beginning. (which is probably the reason I was never put in charge of scriptwriting).

It was an unusually cold and wet afternoon in Auckland in June 2005, when my journey with Prayas commenced.

A couple of days prior I had received a cryptic message on my Sony Ericsson T100 phone asking me if I could come to my friend’s house on Saturday at 2 pm. I agreed. With a maximum of 160 characters per message (and 30 cents per message) – this was the full extent of the conversation.

As I arrived on time, I was shown down to his basement. As I waited for others to arrive (Prayas didn’t have strict casting calls back then), the owner was switching from upstairs and downstairs – calling out to Jojo (their dog) and regularly asking if I was ok. One by one, people started to arrive – as individuals or as a couple.

At approximately 3.15, the final guests arrived – a couple, and we were all seated on chairs in a circle. There wasn’t a great deal of interaction amongst the arrivals and after all had arrived, I only knew one other person in the room – the gentleman that had called us to the meeting.

I distinctly recall feeling at the time that I had inadvertently joined a group of conspirators, plotting a revolution to overthrow a status quo.

The room was called to order with the sound of rain lashing the ranch slider (despite there not being a significant amount of chatter).

Amit, who owned the house, started the meeting by welcoming everyone as “We start our “prayas”.

Every other member of the room nodded with appreciation and started to discuss this ‘prayas’. I realised then that they all didn’t need a translator for this mysterious word ‘prayas’ and seemed to be aware of what was the “Prayas” conspiracy.

After the discussion ceased, I plucked up the courage, in my broad Australian-Kiwi accent and asked what Prayas meant.

At this point Amit motioned to a lady two seats to his right,

“Right Kanchan, ummm…. Good question… Sudeepta, would you like to explain?”

“Hi, I’m Sudeepta, the word Prayas comes from Sanskrit and means ‘attempt’. As you all know we’ll be attempting is a very new thing in Auckland and we have decided to call our project “Prayas” to signify this”.

Right, I thought – definitely a conspiracy. Having inadvertently been invited to Amway seminars I decided to sit back and just listen to all the co-conspirators – and not engage and find a suitable time to politely excuse myself.

However, there was no time to interject.

One person started to talk about the media, another talked about renting space for preparations, another started to talk about deadlines and timelines and the equipment we’d need and how our “Prayas” would be funded.

After about 1 hour and 45 minutes of listening (and not saying a single word) to all the comments, I was becoming more and more confused, perplexed and anxious.

Thinking to myself,
“Why are all these people wanting a conspiracy?”
“what are they “Prayas-ing to do?”

I looked at my watch and was not far from politely interjecting.

Amit saw me fidgeting and the others beginning to look at their watches.

Amit decided to bring it all to a close by saying, “Now that we’ve worked all that out, it is great that we are all agreed to be involved” (at which point I was about to stand up)

“I would like to share the script I have been reading and think we should run with. It’s called Charandas Chor”.

SCRIPT? SCRIPT FOR WHAT? I quickly recovered the topics of conversation in my head – media, rental space, timelines, equipment….and I interjected,

“Sorry Amit, is Prayas going to be a theatre company?”

Stunned looks on all faces.

“Yes Kanchan, I thought we’d covered that (starts looking through his notes) ….oh no, I missed discussing that page in my notes (smiling embarrassed at Sudeepta and turning back at me) What were you thinking?”

“About the same…I was just confirming it Amit”

That is how my Prayas journey actually began.

Post-script:

Prayas was created by a group of conspirators, led by Amit and Sudeepta, that created a new movement where South Asian stories could be shared with everyone, delivered by anyone, and poignant for everyone.

Happy Birthday Prayas.

Kanchan.