Tamil play thanimAI portrays the paradox of the digital age

In Dummies Drama’s thanimAI (story: Nithya Kaushik; direction: Nithya Kaushik and Sreevathson), staged at Krishna Gana Sabha, Aditya, a computer science graduate from IIT, and a fellow IITian Vivek (Karthik Bhat) run a company about to launch an app designed to that help introverts find friends. On the eve of the launch, an AI agent detects a bug in the app but doesn’t point out what it is. Aditya has less than 24 hours to find and fix it.

He decides to work from home. The stakes are high for Aditya, because the foreign investor expresses his displeasure at the last minute glitch. Unfortunately, Aditya struggles to concentrate on his work. His father Viswanathan, a compulsive talker arrives unannounced. Then comes a man looking for his wife Lakshmi, who does the housekeeping, followed by a cable TV technician. And then there is a steady stream of visitors.

The play ironically spotlights a paradox: a man creating an app to beat loneliness is irked by the human presence in his own home.
| Photo Credit:
M. Srinath

The play captured the paradox of the digital age, where everyone is connected via the net, and yet many experience loneliness. It is ironic that Aditya, who is eager to provide a digital solution for human connection, is annoyed by the very presence of people in his house.

The dialogues were sharp and did bog the audience down with technical details. Sridhar’s portrayal of Viswanathan was so natural that it didn’t seem like a stage performance. You had the uncanny feeling of peering into Aditya’s apartment and watching Sridhar solve the problems of the youngsters around him. He conveyed well the anxiety about work and frustration at being interrupted by frequent visitors. While Aditya’s app might have been glitchy, the play itself was flawlessly executed.