Stargazer: Sandhya Mridul, Puran Gabbi and Zubin Varla

Life is a stage

Sandhya Mridul was a popular fixture on TV soaps before wowing us in movies such as Page 3 (2005), and Angry Indian Goddesses (2015). Now, after having recently written a well-received book of poetry (Untamed), she’s back with a play, MCBC: My Crazy Beautiful Chaos. Co-written with Neeraj Pandey, it’s her take on her own life and career, its joys and traumas. The play opens this month with a debut perfor­mance at The Quorum, Gurugram. As Mridul’s friend, and former VJ, Maria Goretti says, Mridul was a baddie long before the world discovered the word.

Brother Gabbi

A new sibling duo is making waves in Hindi cinema. Puran Gabbi’s role as the vil­lain Zorawar in Awarapan 2 has critics talk­ing. With his sister Wamiqa Gabbi hav­ing played Chandra in DC with élan, it’s been a fine month for the two. Puran began his onscreen career with a brief appearance in Aanand L Rai’s Zero in 2018, and he also made an impression as Ranga, one half of the duo that murdered Sanjay and Geeta Chopra, in the Netflix show Black Warrant (2025). It looks like a good time to be a Gabbi.

Class Acts

Zubin Varla has a knack for playing brilliant characters, be it the gang­ster Eddie Fuseli in a new theatrical adaptation of Clifford Odets’ 1939 play Golden Boy or his forthcom­ing role as Khamûl the Easterling in Season 3 of The Lord of the Ring: The Rings of Power. The actor and singer, born in England to Parsi parents, first gained fame as Judas in the 1996 West End revival of Jesus Christ Superstar and also played Saleem in a 2003 production of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.