Code Mantra is a marathi play that is making waves since last few months and it is for all the good reasons. Although late, i got a chance to watch it yesterday.
It is absolutely engrossing right till the end, kudos to the team. The set is brilliant and so are the light and sound arrangements. They have utilised the stage to the optimium and the USP of this play is that it does not have a single blackout. The set is so well organised that the changes are made while the story moves forward and you will not notice any effort or flaw while doing so. Its all knitted so well together!
Having mentioned the technical aspect, lets talk about the plot and actors of this play.
A work of fiction adapted from the play “A Few Good Men”, the plot is that of an army regiment and the soldier’s life there. That’s not all, the real life of this play is the court case.
The Col. Of this regiment is extremely honourable and a high stature army man and he has a great track record including numerous awards and medals, Paramveer Chakra being the most recent and most prestgious one. He is shown to have admisitered and monitored this regiment personally and taken it to great heights. Not to forget his “No one better than me attitude”.
Code Mantra is the unofficial method of executing punishment to the cadets who fail to perform their duties or perform inefficiently. The story begins when Ravi Shelar – a soldier who is a weak perfomer and the regiment is ashamed to have him as its part is unable to complete his daily practice sessions repetedly because of poor health conditions is murdered on the army base. Now this happens accidently while executing Code Mantra on him and that too from the hands of his own elder brother (Vikram Shelar)who is a higher rank cadet in the same regiment. The story moves ahead with their mother pleadong innocence for her elder son who is accused in this matter. This isnt easy to prove because high officials from the army are involved and they make all arrangements to prove this case as an open and shut one thus putting all the blame of elder brother.
The execution of this play clearly marks out all the loopholes that army had worked on in order to come out clean in this case
The astonishing part comes when a young lawyer (Mukta Barve) takes up the case for Vikram Shelar and fights against all odds to prove him innocent. The scene where she interrogates the Col (Ajay Purkar) is mind blowing and very witty. The story doesnt end here, in fact the real suspense begins with the court case. A lot of twists and turns makes this case very interesting and intimidating.
One thing that is absolutely worth mentioning is that all the army soldiers who are in suporting role (more than 15 in number) have done an amazing job in showing off army skills of discipline, clean executions of parade and rifle handling.
A special mention of the performance of Mukta Barve and Ajay Purkar is a must. The duo is very talented and it is clearly one of their best performances. The energy level through out the play never dips and just imagine what enegry these actors may be using when they dont fail in the comparision made with the real army!
The backstage team is also super efficient with handling lot of property and costume change of the the actors.
It was an amazing experice to watch such great stars perform so brilliantly on a very interesting plot. I urge all of you that even if you understand a bit of Marathi, you guys MUST watch this play. The actors have done a great job with body language and like i said the property and stage utilisation is excellent hence langugae is hardly any barrier to understand this play.
I rate this play toal 5/5 wish i could have given 100.
Cheers Code Mantra Team!!
You can view the trailer on Youtube here’s the link Code Mantra Trailer
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A Bit of Wisdom & A Bit of Play! 
I would probably like to watch it, in English tho’ 😀😀