India, April 11 -- First things first. It's rare to spend time with a playwright for an entire day. The Datta Patil Natyachaufula ensures one can do that. And so, you sit back and watch four of Datta Patil's plays performed one after the other - plays that celebrate the village, where everything we imagine (especially the bad news) can happen and it does happen.

There is wit, there is doom and gloom. There is a notional kathavasthu (plot). For example, 'Dagad Ani Maati' follows a character called Nana, through the village called Babul Gaon. It's one of the most pointless searches for non-existent history of the village. We know the end of the play before it starts. Its triumph is the tone of its defeatism. Datta Patil's great contributio...