Best Practices

Indian Knowledge System (IKS)

The Felicity Theatre production “हमारे राम” —a powerful reinterpretation of the Ramayana recently completed another successful phase of its performances. Recognizing the global appeal of the play, the production team sought to create a live English version to run in parallel with the original Hindi performance. This responsibility of developing and synchronizing English dialogues was undertaken by a dedicated student team.

The play itself is a grand cultural presentation, featuring celebrated actors such as Ashutosh Rana and Rahull Bhuchar, supported by soulful music from renowned singers including Shankar Mahadevan, Sonu Nigam, and Kailash Kher. Lasting three-and-a-half hours without a break, the production captivates audiences through its scale, storytelling, and emotional depth.

The translation project posed several technical and artistic challenges. Actors improvise slightly in every show, making it necessary for the English audio to be perfectly aligned with dynamic variations in tone, emotion, pitch, and pause patterns. Each English dialogue had to match the Hindi delivery down to milliseconds to maintain authenticity and avoid any dissonance for viewers. Achieving realistic character voices especially for Ravana and ensuring seamless broadcast through mobile phones or headphones added further complexity.

AI tools played a pivotal role in addressing these challenges. The team experimented with multiple open-source systems and built a hybrid solution. Across 19 scenes and nearly 300 dialogues, each line was refined repeatedly, much like crafting a gemstone. For many team members, this was the first hands-on experience with advanced audio engineering and AI- driven dubbing.

The project was powered by a committed group of students led by Arindam Chakraborty, with major contributions from Aashit Sharma, Mohit Agarwal, and others. Three of them are also founders of Setidure, a startup actively supporting this initiative. Their efforts represent a small but meaningful step into the creative world of Indian theatre and cinema.

A distinctive aspect of this work lies in its connection to India’s knowledge heritage. While Valmiki composed the original Ramayana and Tulsidas rendered it in Avadhi, the English dubbing for “हमारे राम” represents a contemporary, technology-enabled adaptation of these sacred narratives. To the best of the team’s knowledge, such synchronized English audio dialogues of the Ramayana in live theatre form have not been produced before.

Encouraged by this achievement, there is now interest in translating the play into other global languages, including French. The project also highlights the invaluable support of institutional leadership, technical teams, faculty mentors, alumni partners at PEOP360, and the Advanced AI Lab.

This collaborative effort not only showcases innovative applications of AI in the performing arts but also represents a modern contribution to preserving and disseminating India’s epic traditions within the global cultural ecosystem.