Piyakkad is not about a drunkard. It’s deeper than that. It has a different meaning and by the way not everyone is a Piyakkad.

Prithvi Theatre staged a monologue, Piyakkad, by veteran theatre and movie actor Makarand Deshpande. The show starts with humour and progresses to a comment on life. The play would make you laugh and then make you think about these special characters in everyone’s life. The writer, director and actor, Deshpande has penned down these characters referring from real life encounters and metaphorically named them Piyakkad.

Post play he talks about theatre and other things about his career.

Known for his iconic roles on the big screen and theatre, Deshpande prefers stage over films, “I prefer theatre medium to express myself better as an artist as it is where I am completely not answerable to anybody. From construction of thought to the execution of thought, theatre is a medium where there is nothing lost in translation.”

The actor is known for working in multiple languages. But he has a preferred language, “Of course as an actor, one prefers his own mother tongue. My mother tongue is not 1 but 2; Marathi and Hindi. The language you know, the thought process comes to you naturally. And from a thought to execution, as an actor, how you express your emotions is with language. A language you learned in your childhood helps to express yourself clearly.”

Deshpande famed for his acting in Satya and Dagdi chawl talks about his favourite characters,“My favourite roles were Advocate Chandrakant Mule in Satya and Daddy in Dagdi Chawl, a marathi film which we did in two parts.”

His recent work was a monologue where the actor talks about these special characters in his play that had an impact in his life. “Often you see a drunk man on the road. We really don't care and we don't know their stories. So when you put yourself into an unknown, you have more to create. And you will be surprised as we go deep inside in our lives, I found three piyakkads.”

There were three piyakkads in his life who are the inspiration behind the characters he enact in his monologue.

He remembers a man he met as child when playing cricket in an open space, “In my childhood there was a drunk man who would come where we used to play cricket. He had a big belly and looked dangerous, but was very kind.

The second one was a man who had a big heart and would always protect Deshpande and his friends, “We used to stay in a locality where on one side there used to be bungalows and on the other slums. The maids working in the bungalow were from the slums. One of the maid’s sons was a piyakkad. He would protect us. He was the funniest guy who would beat up the cops for taking haftas.”

He talks about the third one, “Then there was a woman who would stay near us. She was the most beautiful woman. At around 1.30 she would walk on the street. I remember that in her house there were bottles behind the books. If you spot her favourite you could get the bottle behind it”

He adds, “What I wanted to tell through my monologue, Piyakkad, was that not everybody is a Piyakkad. You can be a drunkard but not a Piyakkad. To be a Piyakkad you have to be a chosen one.”

Talking about the inspiration for this unique play Deshpande says, “A writer sees the character and takes it further. The characters in Piyakkad were an inspiration from real life.”