Playwright: Kallol Nandi
Setting
- A large, old living room in an old house.
- Visible elements (no set change):
- Dining table + chairs • sideboard/serving area • writing desk with drawer + desk lamp • framed photos (wife, children, maybe one old group photo) • old wall clock (audible ticking) • candles, decorations, plates, glasses, wine, serving trays • a phone (landline or mobile).
- Lighting carries time: morning → afternoon → evening → late night.
Characters
- SUBHAS — Nearing 80. Educated, witty, proud, easily wounded.
- MANTU — House assistant, has served the family for decades; Calls SUBHAS as BORDA.
SCENE 1 — MORNING: THE HOUSE REMEMBERS
(Soft morning. The wall clock ticks. SUBHAS touches objects like they are old friends. MANTU dusts, folds cloth, checks a list.)
SUBHAS (to audience):
I know the sound of an empty house. It isn’t silence. Silence is clean.
This is… breathing—slow, careful—like the house is afraid to disturb me.
(SUBHAS touches a framed photograph: his wife.)
My wife used to fill the corners with her voice. The kitchen, the corridor, even the stairwell—she had a way of making a hallway feel like a festival. When she was alive, the house never had to remember itself. It simply… happened.
Now it remembers. Now the house remembers what I don’t even ask it to.
Small feet running. A voice calling from the kitchen.
A laugh that used to arrive without appointment.
It remembers my friends—too many names for one mouth, too many faces for one mind.
(SUBHAS inhales, steadying himself.)
Today I turn eighty.
(MANTU pauses, looks at him.)
MANTU:
You woke up very early today, Borda.
SUBHAS:
Sleep is for people who have tomorrow without effort.
Come—sit for a moment. Not there. Here. I want to see you properly.
(MANTU sits—half permission, half habit.)
SUBHAS (gentler):
You’ve been in this house long enough to know my habits better than my son does.
Longer than my daughter remembers.
MANTU:
They remember, Borda. They are… busy.
SUBHAS (dry):
Busy. Yes. Busy is the polite word for far away.
(SUBHAS pulls out a folded list: names + preferences. Energy rises.)
Tonight—everything must be perfect.
Not “good.” Not “enough.” Perfect.
MANTU (nodding):
The table, the food, the wine… You already told me, Borda.
SUBHAS:
And I will tell you again. A man turns eighty only once.
If the world refuses to clap, the house must clap for him.
Do you know what I miss most?
MANTU:
Madam.
SUBHAS:
Yes.
And the second thing?
MANTU:
Friends.
SUBHAS:
Correct. And the third?
(He doesn’t answer.)
SUBHAS (smiling):
Tonight, I will have my friends here.
(SUBHAS opens the list, animated.)
We invite my old friends. The ones who can still sit without checking their phones, who still know how to laugh without apologizing for it.
MANTU:
How many will come, Borda?
SUBHAS:
Who are still alive.
Not that many. But enough. Enough to fill a room. Enough to make me feel… human.
(SUBHAS points at names.)
Mr. Roy—no spices. He’ll complain, but he cannot tolerate heat.
Mrs. Patel—wine, but only one glass, and she will pretend she’s not counting.
Dr. Sinha—he will arrive early because he fears being forgotten.
And Sudipta—Sudipta will be late, because he always arrives with a story.
MANTU:
You will be happy, tonight.
SUBHAS:
I will be young. For one evening.
(Lights shift. Time moves.)