A critically acclaimed playwright, director, classical dancer, and musician, Purva Naresh has directed seven productions and written over fifteen plays, including the sensational Ladies Sangeet.
An equally heartfelt and humorous look at tradition, gender roles, and evolving family dynamics in modern Indian society, Ladies Sangeet takes place against the lively scene of a North Indian wedding. The event, called the ladies’ sangeet, is a musical gathering usually reserved for women. However, what starts as a joyful gathering of generations quickly transforms into a space for sharing, healing, and surprising rebellion. Through biting satire, evocative music, and powerful performances, Naresh uses the familiar setting of an Indian wedding to challenge gender roles, familial expectations, and the hidden ties that connect Indian women across generations.
After a successful stage run in 2016, Naresh and her theatre group, Aarambh Mumbai, are bringing the play back for one night only on 30 August 2025 at the Apparel House in Gurugram, in collaboration with the New Delhi-based Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.
Earlier this week, Ms Naresh spoke to Homegrown about using the domestic to reflect the political and the subversive vision of Ladies Sangeet.
Ladies Sangeet takes place in the middle of an Indian wedding—a space traditionally associated with joy, ritual, and community—yet it also uncovers layers showing how women navigate expectations and resist limitations. When you write about such everyday settings, what truths about society come to light that might otherwise be missed?
Misogyny is so deeply embedded in our everyday life and larger than life celebrations, events, concepts that most times we don't recognise it and in fact celebrate it with joy — even the most educated and privileged of us.
The idea of beauty is a carefully created missive and is crafted primarily through the lens of the male gaze.
A patriarchal society feeds and thrives upon our inability to question or argue and most institutions, seniors, leaders, and gurus encourage us to be non-argumentative in the name of respect to maintain the status quo.
Your plays often use humour and music as narrative tools that both soothe and disturb. Do you see these elements as a way of sneaking difficult conversations into the room, and what do they allow you to express that straightforward realism cannot?
Yes, I do. Straight forward realism often filters out the common man. I want to speak to a larger audience.
Humour and music allow me to engage in difficult discourses across platforms where the common man primarily seeks entertainment. Music is a universal language — it works when words fail. Humour soothes ruffled nerves — because we are touching upon sensitive topics and engaging with family audiences who are usually sensitive or unwilling to have the norms questioned.
When ‘Ladies Sangeet’ was first performed, India’s public discussion about gender and sexuality was very different. As you revive it in 2025, what has changed in the cultural climate, and what, in your view, has stubbornly remained the same?
Gender conversations have become sharper, mostly among the young and the privileged. Nuances are still unexplored. Recognising vulnerabilities for the female gender has gained strength because it is an older movement. Conversations around other genders and sexualities are still in nascent stages for our society and are being resisted very aggressively in the name of tradition, culture, nation, and religion.
So acceptance of equality for women is where most gender conversations stop in smaller towns. And in bigger towns the nuances stay limited to the intellectual class and escape some or a large mass of people. This results in paradoxes that while most people acknowledge gender sensitivity, toxic masculinity sells the most. In fact, it is made attractive through popular content and disguised so well that we seldom see beyond the dressing up of it. Monks are seldom romantic heroes — warriors always are.
So what has remained stubborn is our inability to be analytical and questioning when it comes to tradition and religion but what has changed is our willingness to engage.
I personally believe we are still in the stage of breaking the rules in gender war. Which won't do. We can't break the rules of the age old game. We will have to redefine the game and change the playing field to level.
"Purva Naresh’s expertise in music, film, and writing brings depth and sensitivity to the complex issues her works center around. Her performances blend various art forms, creating powerful narratives that resonate with audiences all across. As an organisation that seeks to provoke interest in the arts by making it accessible to all, KNMA is very pleased to present a work such as Ladies Sangeet."Aditi Jaitly, Senior Curator, Performing Art, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
Throughout your body of work, you revisit themes of memory, community, and the private negotiations of women’s lives. Looking back, what has influenced your own sense of storytelling the most: personal experience, theatre as a collective practice, or the shifting cultural landscape around you?
Personal experiences is foremost. From the personal has stemmed the political.
And definitely the shifting cultural, social, and political landscape. I was in college when liberalisation happened. I was in college when Mandal Commission happened. I was in college when Babri Masjid happened. I was in college when Bombay blasts happened. But I didn't understand the sum total of all this until much later till I started studying film and theatre.
As a student of classical dance, music, and a conventional bachelor's degree course, I was asked to be reverential and respectful most times. As a film student and theatre practitioner I was asked to be questioning and irreverent most times. As a corporate employee I was asked to toe the line and play the rules of the market. As an artist I was always encouraged to be inclusive and not just be one or the other. So I was pushed towards inclusivity by questioning and breaking the rules but not simply in defiance. It was meant to seek new grounds and inclusivity, especially of those on the other side.
Ladies Sangeet: A Musical Dramedy, written and directed by Purva Naresh, will be presented by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, in collaboration with Aarambh Mumbai, will be staged at Apparel House, Gurugram on 30th August.
Follow KNMA for more information.
Follow Purva Naresh here.
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