NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Lifestyle

Trilogy portrays experience of being an Indian in NZ

By Dionne Christian
27 Jul, 2005 05:17 AM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

The Pickle King is a love story based in a rundown hotel.

The Pickle King is a love story based in a rundown hotel.

It started with a chance meeting across the bar at the late - but still lamented - Watershed Theatre. Nearly 10 years later, Jacob Rajan and Justin Lewis are still having that chinwag, but it's been far from idle conversation.

Out of their discussion came Indian Ink, the theatre company responsible
for three of New Zealand's most successful plays: Krishnan's Dairy (1997), The Candlestickmaker (2000) and The Pickle King (2002).

They have had glowing reviews, won awards, toured internationally and earned their creators enough to feed their families without having to deliver pizza or stack supermarket shelves on the side.

Now, for the first time, the trilogy will be performed consecutively - each play for two nights - in Auckland and Wellington. The reason? Audience demand, says Lewis, the producer, director and co-writer.

He explains Indian Ink's success, saying, "There are lots of ways to cook chicken. You can roast it or you can make chicken madras. It still tastes good and it's still the same basic thing. We tell good human stories and people are just people no matter where they come from.

"A lot of theatre companies in New Zealand produce work - great work - for a show to be put on for a total of six weeks if you're lucky. We are about making work and keeping it alive for a long period of time. Luckily, audiences have embraced what we have done."

The plays were inspired by the experiences of being Indian in New Zealand, and introduce a world - part fantasy, part reality - whose characters are different from those usually seen in the mainstream but share the same dreams, fears and longings.

Rajan, the performer and co-writer, can portray the multifarious characters with masks that he says embrace the "theatricality of theatre".

"How do you compete with television, with film or with DVDs and computer games?" he asks. "The temptation has been to make things naturalistic, but what struck us is that the point of the theatre is that it can be larger than life. It can be a fantasy world."

Krishnan's Dairy, the first instalment, was a class exercise Rajan did while a drama school student. He took the cliche that all dairies in New Zealand are run by Indians, threw in a love story and created a 20-minute piece using masks to portray different characters.

As a young Indian actor, he figured work would be more limited than for many of his classmates: "It's not something I'm particularly militant about. It's just a fact of life."

After meeting Lewis in 1996, they decided to develop Rajan's piece. The challenge was fitting in their new project with other work commitments. They worked for short, intense bursts and found things would later coalesce, allowing them to take the next step.

The curtain went up on Krishnan's Dairy 18 months later at Bats Theatre in Wellington. The reviews were glowing and ticket sales went berserk.

Lewis and Rajan took the show on the road. Everywhere, there were rave reviews and sold-out shows. In 1997, Krishnan's Dairy was Production of the Year at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards.

They shouted themselves a trip to Italy the following year to spend three months at an international school for masks in theatre, and in 1999 participated in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and got a Fringe First Award.

Then the NZ Festival of the Arts commissioned them to write a second play. They had to escape the shadow of Krishnan's Dairy but create something with similar appeal.

The writing process was totally different. There were deadlines and expectations. Unfinished, with three months to go until a sold-out opening night, Rajan and Lewis workshopped the piece to a non-industry audience in Hamilton.

"It was just marvellous because the audience asked us really simple, basic questions which made us think," Lewis says. "We realised we had to tell this story in its own way."

The Candlestickmaker was their second success and spurred Rajan and Lewis to complete a trilogy.

For The Pickle King, a love story set in a rundown hotel, Rajan drew on the more humorous aspects of a night-porter job he had done to pay his way through university.

They kept the masks but expanded the cast.

Repeating the success of Krishnan's Dairy, The Pickle King won the Chapman Tripp Production of the Year 2002 and another Fringe First Award at Edinburgh the following year.

Lewis and Rajan no longer tour the plays - they have six children between them so don't want to stay on the road for months at a stretch, saying it is not fair on their families and they would miss their kids too much.

They never tire of their trilogy, saying it is constantly evolving. Dialogue is tweaked or updated; the staging alters slightly.

And the audiences, a much more diverse bunch than often seen at the theatre, still come.

* Indian Ink Trilogy - Krishnan's Dairy, The Candlestickmaker and The Pickle King is at the SkyCity Theatre, July 29-Aug 13

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Lifestyle

Lifestyle

Woolworths issues major recall of contaminated mince

03 Jul 01:10 AM
Lifestyle

How to handle your child's attention-seeking behaviours

03 Jul 12:44 AM
Premium
Lifestyle

Why the ageing process spikes at 44 and 60 (and how to stop it)

03 Jul 12:00 AM

Sponsored: Get your kids involved in your reno

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

Woolworths issues major recall of contaminated mince

Woolworths issues major recall of contaminated mince

03 Jul 01:10 AM

Some customers found 'foreign matter' in their meals before the recall was announced.

How to handle your child's attention-seeking behaviours

How to handle your child's attention-seeking behaviours

03 Jul 12:44 AM
Premium
Why the ageing process spikes at 44 and 60 (and how to stop it)

Why the ageing process spikes at 44 and 60 (and how to stop it)

03 Jul 12:00 AM
Affordable superfoods: How beans can boost your health and budget

Affordable superfoods: How beans can boost your health and budget

02 Jul 11:57 PM
Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP
search by queryly Advanced Search