Guliyo Syau tries to bridge parent-child perception gap

Kathmandu, July 15

Most of the parents confront a serious philosophical and cognitive discrepancy with their kids. While every generation comes up with new understanding and impressions about the world, human beings and relations, the recent ones are even more advanced due to their exposure to modern education system and technology.

But many of the parents don't realise this gap in their worldview and exert pressure on their kids to create something as they want or function in the way they like.

Writer, artist and theatre director Kedar Shrestha has taken an initiative, through a play 'Guliyo Syau (sweet apple)' to show a mirror to such parents, while at the same time telling the kids that they can be creative in their own ways.

He tells a story of a 6-7-year-old kid who loves to colour the pictures but with unconventional shades, quite contrary to the impressions of his mother who keeps on questioning his choices of colour and expresses grievances that her son has become 'senseless'.

The child colours sun in red, quite contrary to the prevalent 'yellow', paints a leaf with brown and sky with black. When his mother expresses dissatisfaction at each of the colour choice, he says that the morning sun is red, dried leaf is brown and night sky is black. Just to prove his point, he paints several stars on the sky as well.

In the end, when he paints an apple with green colour saying it's an unripe fruit, mother says she wants a sweet apple not a 'sour' one. And, only the red apple is the sweet apple. In an effort to make his mother happy, the kid takes a picture of a beautiful red apple from a box with a 'Peppa pig' doll. Mother becomes happy, he becomes joyful.

While the play advances, special characters like bee, Mickey Mouse, and owl keep on coming to the stage to surprise the kid as well as the audiences.

The play is being staged at the Mandala Theatre and the entire theatre, from its courtyard to the stage, is decorated to please the children. Red and green apples are decorated on the trees, a makeshift gate is created with a picture of a red apple and theatre is decorated with a lot of stars. Special seating arrangements are made for the children and they can participate in the play, intermittently.

Manish Byanju as a kid has delivered an amazing performance. He speaks less but tells a lot. Elina Nakarmi acts as the mother and Sanjita Parajuli as animals. Writer and director Shrestha said that the 'Sweet Apple' is a semi non-verbal play about the conflict between children's psychology, their smart perspective and their parent's perspective. 

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 16 July 2026.