Lights won’t go off at Akshara thanks to fans’ support and donations

There’s always light at the end of the tunnel. This has turned out to be true for Delhi’s iconic Akshara Theatre that has just bounced back from a major setback. Last month, we reported that the theatre was struggling to clear its unpaid electricity bill of Rs 5 lakh due to lack of funds. The theatre took to crowd-funding and finally the bills have been cleared off, and is set for struggles ahead.

Read: Don’t Let the Lights Go Off at Akshara Theatre

Anasuya Vaidya, the daughter of founders of Akshara – Gopal Sharman and Jalabala Vaidya, shares with us, “After reading about our crowd-funding initiative in HT City, Mohini Binepal, a resident of Mangalore sent us a donation of Rs 50,000. She was in Delhi last month and happened to read the news. There were many others who wrote in from various cities.”

Vaidya says that when the news went viral, standup comedian Papa CJ was among the first people who came to the theatre’s rescue. He donated Rs 3 lakh as an advance for his performance at the theater this year. “I was travelling to New York for my show Naked when I learnt about the situation at Akshara. My first thought was that I must try and help them. The show was born within the four walls of Akshara,” says Papa CJ .

“What Akshara offers us in invaluable. It enables us to experiment, to take risks, to create and innovate. I knew I had to do whatever I could to help the theatre,” adds the comedian. The theatre will be organising a festival towards the end of this month to celebrate their survival and thank all those who stood by it during hardship.

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