Atul Kumar reimagines Mark Haddon's cult classic for the Indian stage

The Curious Incident... is a complicated work—the story told from a child’s perspective in a world that seems overwhelming. Christopher Boone lives with his widowed father and is determined to solve the case of a dog’s murder next door. This investigation leads him in many directions and towards a long journey of his own. In the original, Boone makes an arduous train journey from his home in Swindon to central London. In this adaptation, the journey is from Bandra to Colaba in Mumbai on a local train. Kumar believed that the script fit perfectly in Mumbai’s hip suburban neighbourhood. “The language is the same that is spoken in Bandra, the problems and people are the same. And the local train network made for a fantastic equivalent," he explains. 

The play features an ensemble cast with some memorable performances by Jaimini Pathak as Ed Boone (Christopher’s father) and Abhay Kaul as the investigating officer. But it is Dheer Hira as Christopher Boone who is a revelation. He caries the part with tenderness and ease, without ever resorting to caricature. Your heart goes out to the little boy, and you begin to understand his world with increasing empathy. Kumar first wanted to cast a child but then changed his mind. “I didn’t know if this was a world a young person could carry. It might have been a tough journey," he says.

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Chief among the challenges of the play was the depiction of the child’s inner world and Asperger’s Syndrome. From the onset, Kumar knew the solution lay in 3D technology and three giant screens that would at once make up Bandra’s by-lanes and the train station, as well as the mind. “I wanted to simulate the mind of Christopher visually and aurally. A video projected on three screens would make it a little more immersive for the audience. I wanted to recreate how he hears and sees things," he says. 

Kumar’s experiments have proven successful, and the moving images provide a stimulating and believable background. The soundscape adds a layer of the sonic chaos of Mumbai’s traffic and crowds, enabling one to imagine Boone’s solo journey halfway across town. To design this tech experiment, Kumar took the help of documentaries and tutorials that dive deep into the minds of neurodivergent children. “How do they see and perceive colour? How do they hear white noise? How do finite geometrical shapes need to be clean and specifically placed for them to feel a sense of order? We created images and sounds keeping this in mind," Kumar explains. 

However, despite numerous attempts, he admits that it is nearly impossible to recreate the magic of Haddon’s book. “Both the script and production lack immensely in bringing alive the train station until Boone reaches his mother’s house. Neither has cracked the imagery Haddon’s book manages to produce. I want to go back to the drawing board for it," he says. This isn’t the only thing Kumar thinks he has been unable to replicate. The wry British humour from Haddon’s book and Stephen’s play is the other big one. “That started falling flat in our Mumbai context. We had to use our own phrases to bring that out," he says. 

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Kumar is also toying with the idea of replacing the lead with a female character. “We are talking of Christopher, why can’t we think of some shows with a young girl, Christina? It would reveal more aspects," he says. Where Kumar fails in staging, he wins in the sensitive portrayal of the characters in turmoil. The play’s best moments don’t lie in the physical and sometimes slapstick comedy but in the emotional arcs. Judy Boone’s (Shivani Tanksale) dilemma upon the arrival of her child, Ed’s attempts at winning back Christopher’s affection, and Siobhan’s (Christopher’s teacher, Dilnaz Irani) tender ways with the child, are some of them. 

At Kamani Theatre, Delhi, 11-12 January. 

Prachi Sibal is a Mumbai-based writer.