Review by Talia Carlisle.

A wise man once told me that real loves grows, and so does my love of Indi­an Ink’s now leg­endary tale of Krishnan’s Dairy that wound up its final sea­son in Welling­ton this week.

The pro­duc­tion is a well pol­ished gem in the crown of cre­ative team Jacob Rajan and Justin Lewis, which I first saw at Wellington’s Han­nah Play­house 10 years ago and have been cap­ti­vat­ed by ever since.

Their lat­est and last sea­son found its home at Te Papa’s Sound­ings The­atre and was just as mag­nif­i­cent, hilar­i­ous and heart-wrench­ing as I remem­ber. Added to this was the per­fect­ly chore­o­graphed sound design, cre­ative props, catchy songs and their infa­mous­ly mag­i­cal mask wiz­ardry that brought our favourite dairy and char­ac­ters to life.

There are many leg­ends in this tale of an immi­grant dairy own­er named Gobi — all of whom are played by Rajan and weave in Gobi’s love sto­ry with his wife Zina — in with that of the Indi­an Emper­or and vision­ary roman­tic, Shah Jahan, who is respon­si­ble for the famous Taj Mahal.

It com­pares their recent arranged mar­riage with the prospect of a love mar­riage, all while set­tling into new life and par­ent­hood in the prized sub­urbs of New Zealand… which is not the par­adise Zina imag­ined it to be.

The per­se­ver­ance of their rela­tion­ship — and of their shop that earns them $4 an hour on a good day with­in a 17-hour shift — is noth­ing com­pared to the per­se­ver­ing strength of the Indi­an Ink Com­pa­ny. which has itself hon­oured New Zealand as its home for 25 years, despite receiv­ing rap­tur­ous applause and 65 suc­cess­ful over­seas tours dur­ing that time.

Their love sto­ry, both Gobi’s and Rajan’s, will not be for­got­ten and I am ready to love the new works by these mas­ter­ful cre­ators that are already on their way to inspire new audi­ences like myself.

I am not ready to let go of Gobi and Zina yet, but their impact will stay in my heart, and in the shad­ows of Te Papa where this breath­tak­ing mas­ter­piece is appro­pri­ate­ly wor­thy of a long await­ed rest.

I don’t see any rest in sight for its cre­ators how­ev­er, and I couldn’t be hap­pi­er about that.