National Network for Equitable Library Service

In The Matka King—a story that pits human nature against love and chance—a landscape of betrayal and redemption comes to life in the red-light district of Bombay, India. One very powerful eunuch, Top Rani, operates an illicit lottery through his brothel, and when a gambler who is deeply in debt makes an unexpected wager, the stakes become life and death. Bombay Black—winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play—tells the story of Apsara, Bombay’s most infamous dancer, who lives with her iron-willed mother, Padma, in an apartment by the sea. Padma takes money from men so they can watch her daughter perform a mesmerizing dance. When a mysterious blind man named Kamal visits for a private dance, his secret link to their past threatens to change each of their lives forever. At turns lyrical and brutal, Bombay Black charts the seduction of Apsara by Kamal, and Padma’s violent enmity towards the blind man and the secret he holds.