Do You Know This Song?

There once was a voice. Oh, what a voice it was! A voice so evocative that it could move you to tears. A voice so bold that it stirred every fabric of your being. A voice so audacious that it made you shake. A voice so loud, with a range so high, that it just so happened to escape the confines of the throat. It fought the chords, hopped and skipped, traversed the length and breadth of the universe, and took a leap so high and a jump so far that... it was lost. Where did this voice go? Where did it come from? And the songs that this voice sang—where are they now?

Do You Know This Song?

A fever dream. That is what this play is. And not only because of its pervading essense of surrealism, but also because of the energy of its performer. A solo show that brings in both prose and verse, Mallika Taneja’s power lies in her ability to play with and manipulate the concept of time, space, and identity for her audience.

There are just two ends to her stage, yet they represent so much, most of all a world of dreams lost and found. As Taneja struggles to collect a time that has crumbled and faded and as she travels between the past and the present, her audience is invited into this vulnerable world. A deeply evocative performance, Do You Know This Song?  has the ability to make you feel a myriad of emotions and since you are partaking in the performance, you tend to become more conscious of the ocean of feelings forming inside of you.

What hooked me most about this performance was the realisation that, at times, the elements most familiar to us—be it our surroundings, sounds, scents, or secrets interwoven to shape our identity—can lead us to a point where we inadvertently lose ourselves. And how unsettling would that be? To live with oneself and yet be such a stranger to one’s own experiences.

The performance may begin with a single question, whether we know this song or not, but as it unfolds further, many more unsaid questions pop up in its course: some hopeful, some sorrowful, some existential, some terrifying, some reassuring, but all of them deeply necessary to be able to truly soak in and savour the intensity of this performance.

Do You Know This Song? is set to be staged at the 19th edition of Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards. And for those who are going to witness it, be prepared for the rollercoaster of questions and emotions that this performance is bound to evoke.