But it is precisely this mundane issue that has imparted the play's box- office collections extra weight. So much so, that neither the pre-World Cup fever nor recession have been able to take away its audience. "Not even on a week day."

According to Apte the protagonist of his Natya Darpan Rajni award-winning play could be any women. "A judge, an IAS officer, a simple office-goer." And that's where the play scores. "Replace the mother's profession with any other and its three-member family's story -- a successful professional mother, an equally successful father and their 22-year-old brilliant son-- could be that of any family."

In Abhinetri, the rift between mother and son reaches near collapse. To a point that she finds out about her son's departure for the US just a day before he is to leave. "It is this problem which audiences identify with."

Abhinetri, according to Apte, is not a pointer of things to come. Rather, it is "a presentation of facts that already exist". He also refuses to label the play as a changed picture of an urban family. "My play is a story of human beings. It is about their expectations from people they are close to, albeit conflicting ones. But it is something that could happen in a rural setting as well. The problem is, least of all, confined to a particular class."

At NCPA on April 24 at pm.