A Brimful of Asha

 

Digital stage recording from the Surrey Civic Theatres until January 31, 2021
Tickets: pay-what-you-can. Suggested price: $15 at tickets.surrey.ca

Posted January 18, 2021

There hasn’t been much to smile at recently but I swear I had a smile on my face for an hour-and-a-half while watching Why Not Theatre’s A Brimful of Asha. Written and directed by Ravi Jain and featuring Ravi and his mother Asha, you know you’re in for a good time when Ravi tells us, “It’s a true story” but his mother  warns us, “He’s a liar” delivered with the sweetest, most mischievous little smile. Asha, sitting at one end of a food-covered dining room table, is tiny and somewhat demure in her bright pink sari but it’s the twinkle in her eye that really gets to you. She goes on to say she’s not an actress but “a wife and an abused mother”.

No, neither Ravi nor his father beats Asha; it’s Ravi’s reluctance bordering on refusal to get married that makes her feel abused. According to Indian culture, there are four stages in life and marriage is one of them. Twenty-seven and trying to start his own theatre company, Ravi is not in any hurry but Asha believes it is her maternal duty to see her son “married  and settled” and then she can get on with her own life. When Ravi argues, “First comes love/then comes marriage/then comes . . . ”, Asha says that’s why Indians don’t sing that song. It’s the other way around: first comes marriage, then comes love and Asha has forty years of marriage to Ravi’s father to prove it works. Does it really work? “Oh, we argue and fight. That’s the best part of marriage”, she says with a wicked little smile.

The Jain family live in Toronto but Indian culture runs deep and, as Asha says, if Ravi marries a girl in India, the Jain family will retain ties to their country of origin. So, rather than break his mother’s heart, Ravi agrees to take a look at some of the young women his parents think suitable. He sets out three rules: there will be no lying; he won’t just marry anyone; and he will marry in his own time.

What follows is Ravi and Asha’s re-telling  – across the dining room table – of how his sightseeing and theatre networking trip to India went sideways.

Bio Data, as a marriage screening tool, is apparently big in India and, okay, Ravi agrees to meet a “girl” in Bombay who, by all accounts in smart, “average looking” and whose “star chart” is acceptable to his parents. But, oh, the aunties and uncles, cousins and grandparents, parents and nieces and nephews that gang up on poor Ravi.

Why does this theatrical clash of generations and cultures work so well? Ravi Jain and Asha Jain are two people you fall in love with.  He’s smart and funny and, after all, like Ravi we believe in love first, then marriage, right? It’s nobody’s business but his own who and when – or even if – he marries. And Asha is a scheming little charmer with a Mona Lisa smile. Together they’re a winning team.

Brimful of Asha is a revealing look into cultural practices that still exist; this is not ancient history although arranged marriages are probably dying a slow death, especially for the Canadian offspring of immigrants from subcontinental Asia. And it points out the huge shock these Indian brides of arranged marriages experience upon arrival in Canada: “No family. No friends. And a lotta lotta snow”, Asha tells Ravi. She didn’t even know how to turn on the stove to make a meal for her new husband. Other Indian immigrants became like family and big gatherings with loads of food and laughter were the glue that kept communities together.

Indo-Canadians and non-Indo-Canadians should see this show; immigrants and non-immigrants from everywhere should also see this show. Heck, everyone should see this show. It’s a delightful eye-opener and, in a sweetly funny way, enlightening.

A is for Asha. B is for Brimful. C is for charming. A Brimful of Asha will give you a reason to smile.