Prachyo Theatre Festival 2016

Plays in Prachyo Theatre Festival 2016

Tughlaq

Among the early masterpieces of post-Independence Indian theatre, ‘Tughlaq’ deserves a special mention for three counts. One, Girish Karnad found a parallel to Jawaharlal Nehru and his failure to live up to the monumental expectations of the people of a ‘free’ Indian nation. Two, ‘Tughlaq’ opened up fresh possibilities of interpreting the medieval history which has been vilified along communal lines by the British historians. Three, by authoring a Kannada script and then self-translating into English, Girish Kamad emerged as a formidable authorial voice of postcolonial India.

. However, it is the continuous of staging ‘Tughlaq’ over the last 50 years that makes it among the most important dramas of modern Indian theatre. Ebrahim Alkazi set the ball rolling with his re-orientation of the play at

Purana Qila as the perfroman site for his TISD production. Alyque Padamsee, 0m Shivpuri to Bhanu 1harti … the illustrious line continues I till today. Bengal’s brush with ‘Tughlaq’ is no less exciting. Sombhu Mitra teamed up with Shyamanand Jalan in tumultuous 1972 to it. The production bombed! Later on Sekhar Chatteljee and Salil Bandyopadhyay attempted it with varying degrees of success. Now Salil’s one-time disciple Debesh Chattopadhyay reinterprets the dreams, the delusions of the most remarkable Sultan of medieval India. As the world experiences mass-migrations all over, as the nation finds it extremely difficult to rein the divisive forces, what can a dreamer known for his ‘madness’ achieve? ‘Tughlaq’ serves a plethora of problems and a wide range of insights into our times.

Boma

The play tells the story of Bengal’s freedom movement in the fiery era (1908-1922). The dream of revolution and its flair, fight and despair of failure, tension in individual relationship – trust and lack of it – all these are reflected in each part of the play.

Two mutually opposite streams of incidents – the passion for freedom of the indomitable activists and it’s suppression process by the English rulers – each tried to outsmart the other with comparable flourish in the play.

Influenced by the ideas of Aurobindo Ghosh, the members of the Bengal – Barin Ghosh, Ullaskar Dutta, Hemchandra Kanungo, Upendranath Bandyopadhyay and many others remain undeterred in their quest for freedom.

The failure of the bid to eliminate the sadistic Magistrate Kingsford becomes a turning point for the English rulers. They are determined to fight back, creating divisions in the ranks of revolutionaries, secret collection of information and combining operations leading to capture of top leaders caused disintegration of the revolutionaries. The Alipore Bomb case begins.

Aurobindo’s withdrawal becomes more relevant in the contexts of these conflicts around us. Buoyed by a deep sense of philosophy, he takes a recourse to the path of total submission to his inner spiritual call. After a long time one person comes to meet him. The person in mentally shattered because of unfulfilled life. The play goes beyond the frame of the horizon and sails in the timeless contemporaries.

Dard-e Naak

Right from the inception of Drama or the Plays or Novels we find the existence “Chorus” playing a crucial role in bringing about the crux of thematic sentiment. Much in the line today we find the variant in the form of mob psychology ‘ which is the butt of ridicule in the dramatic re-presentation of ‘Dard-c-Naak’ by Usha Ganguli, based on the story ‘ Viswa ‘Vikhykhyaathamaya Mooku ‘ ( The World Renowncd Nose ) by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer.

It is a satire which projects the inconsistencies, illogical and irrational attitude/behaviour of the common people of the society.

They fluctuate with the fluctuating happenings in and around them. It seems the power to think and introspect the events and incidents that take place in the society, is maimed. They can neither be classified as oppressed mass or oppressors .They are unruly aliens who can neither think on their ownl nor can stand out for {others. They sway with the ebb and flow. That is why, in the play we find the psychology of the mob consistently inconsistent.

if The plot rotates around the central character ‘ Tulua ‘ and his transformation from a poor cook Tulua to an overnight turned wealthy business tycoon MrT K uKichchiwala , whose fame and influence has come because of a sudden and mysterious l growth of a long nose. It is here the society’s role and response is captured and questioned. Sometimes he is attributed with supernatural features for which people offer him bribes to watch his nose and the next? Themoment he becomes the influential voice of the society who controls the media, the interviewers, the tourists and the recently grown hype. In addition, he is also awarded by the Government for being the ‘ long nose one’. The pain and sufferings of Tulua-turned-TK Kichchiwala is left all alone with him.

The play is winded up till the fundamental question posed on us our thoughts being confused or confusion with the ability to think?

Debotar Grash

“Greed is a sin, Sin is Death”

—But, when greediness, and the desire of attaining religious good deeds, spread to the extent, where they have to face death, face to face, ‘then’, a shocking truth or boundary is crossed unknowingly in our heart. Darkness surrounds us. When Greedy ‘Mokkhoda’, in the greed of attaining good deeds, sacrifices her one and only child, for the sake of religious rigidity, then, the magical liberation of god, turns out to be a joke.

“Chol torey diye asi, Sagorer torey” — “Come, let me leave you, to the ocean”—- mistakenly utterance of few words, turned out to be a fatal truth, where a mother had to lose her son, and the child was floated away, into the huge unforgiving ocean. Just for the sake of acquiring good deeds, while returning back from the journey, this heinous, disastrous, wild incident occurred.

Tolerance, Humanity bled to death, in our bare hands, in the hands of Human. More than 100 years ago, the truth that Sri Rabindranath Tagore, had illustrated in his poetry, finds relevance even today, and is proved by the incidents that are occurring in and around us.

And keeping this relevance in our mind, we decided to represent, on stage, a theatre production based on —Sri Rabindranath Thakur’s poem –“DEVOTAR GRASH”.

Bipanata

Bipanata’ is a story of helplessness.

Sulagna Dutta, a woman in her late 50s, is a widow and a single parent. She represents the common middle class, who wake up to everyday routine work and expect a more or less secured lifestyle. She is not a political bigwig, neither is she a ‘celebrity’. She is just like the thousands of Indian widowed working mothers you would not notice when they pass you by. She has singlehandedly raised her son Ujaan to be a good student and responsible son and he is now a computer engineer.

The only problem is that he has an OPNION. His own well defined opinions. He is sensitive and reacts like a normal human being is supposed to react to events happening around him. Events of large scale state generated violence. Violence that permeates into our lives and induces a constant state of fear in our psyche. Sulagna is worried for her son, who goes into bouts of depression and hides at home, refusing to go out and participate in a world where he cannot question. So she has set up an appointment with the renowned psychoanalyst Dr. Ahana Roy.

What follows is a heartrending search into fear psychosis and helplessness that is born out of it. Are we all trying to hide in our cocoon? Are we afraid to speak up, talk back, question? How is an individual who is used to negotiate in these circumstances? These times? Do we need help?

Karubasana

The play Karubasona is based on the novel written by Jibanananda Das in 1932. It is believed to be by and large an autobiographical novel of the poet that was published posthumously in 1986.

The play Karubasona centres around a man (Hem) whose love for art (Karu) takes his mind away from this material world. Ide has a family, but his love for art makes him ignorant and lost in that world. His wife complaints. His daughter suffers. His parents wants him to grow in life, become rich enough to make the family happy. But he, being a part of the world of Passion for Art (Karubasona), is not bothered about the materialistic desire.

He represents an artiste. Ile is not an individual, but a representative of the inner soul of an artiste. As such the character is shown as two souls which have their internal conflict. He loves to spend time in nature. Ile loves to see the gentle breeze on the paddy fields and loves to listen to song of the nature. His creative mind meanders in the field of performing arts where he adores great performers and dreams to be in their world of magnificent performances, oblivious about the fact that he is ignorant about his family, his wife, his daughter or his parent’s material requirement. When his wealthy uncle comes as a guest to stay in their house, his parents try to serve him beyond their capacity with an expectation that his influence will get their son well placed in life.

However this man, when asked to talk about his career, he fails to do that and discusses artistic world with the uncle, when takes advantage of the situation and instead of helping him exploits the family. The family continues to meet financial hardships but Hem hardly is moved by such failures. His love for art continues and his desire of creativity grows to an extent that one day, he sees himself as lost from this material world. He leaves behind a true passion that passes for generations, where family, money or influential rich relative hardly matter. What remains is the passion for art, Krubasona.

Karubasona is almost like a autobiography of the poet which depicts the failure of family person in search of true love for Art, which never got satisfied into material world. Yet the passion continued.

Antigone

When I was reading famous historian Eric Hobsbawn’s “Globalisation Democracy and Terrorism” I felt the book is extremely significant to understand the time we are living in. Standing in the year of 2015 in order to understand the definition of a state, its relationship with the common man. The increasing worldwide terrorism, the steady socio economic political decay we have to refer to Eric Hobsbawn’s book.

If we look at our own country, India then the disillusionment of the common people regarding the Bhartiya Janata Patty is absolutely clear. The constant price hike of the everyday commodities, the insecurity in employment, suicide of a farmer making headlines every day, the acts of violence taking place in every strata of the society proves that the feeling general people have about the ruling party is neither vague nor incorrect. .the situation of Bangladesh and Pakistan is also terrifying.

People are pretending to restore peace knowing very well that the whole country has actually become a bed of explosives. But the smell of dead spreads very quickly and so increases the number of vultures and hyenas. Writing about War and Peace in the 20th century Hobsbawm writes “it has been a century of almost unbroken war”

And it is true. Many examples can be cited. 1914-1945.World War I&ll. Only 1920 got a scope to breathe in this period. The year when officially peace was declared. When there was ‘no war violence and bloodshed continued even then. There was just no stopping. When japan attacked Manchuria a nonstop war started immediately. World War Il was immediately followed by the cold war-a clash of the two superpowers of the world.

Hobsbawn has divided this century in three parts

1 . The phase of the two world wars (1914-1945)

2. The clash of the two super powers (1945-1989)]

3. The era after the downfall of the Soviet Union (which still continues today) Small or big-act of violence continues to take place in different forms. War always breaks out because one country tried to cross the border of another. Uncounted civil wars have caused too much of bloodshed. While describing violence in the 21 st century he writes “at the start of the 21st century we find ourselves in a world where operations are no longer essentially in the hands of the governments or the authorised agents”.

So we see when the number of international cross border war decreased and internal conflicts and civil wars increased substantially. And with this increasing internal wars the question of the common man’s safety and security started to drift away. During the World War I only 5% of the total unarmed population died. This figure rose to a whopping 66% after World War Il and NOW- when two are nations fight 85 to 90% of the total national population dies. And behind statistics is the unimaginable development of science and technology. Hobsbawn explains “the proportion that has increased since the end of cold war because military operations since then have been conducted not by conscript armies buff! Small bodies of regular or irregular troops, and in many cases operating technology weapon sand protected against the risk of incurring casualties. Statistics of the damage of the human resources that has caused in the wars two world wars is spine chilling though the wars took place for a shorter periodic times as compared to the world wars but the damage caused was manifold. As example during the 1971 Indo Pakistan war as per military terms the •war fought for two weeks but the number of people who became ‘refugees’ in this sa span of two weeks-is 10 milliön. In the year of 190 the arms used in different wars fought in South Africa was not that worth mentioning, people who slew others throat would be few thousands but people who lost everything in this would count to millions. Technology, Communication, Supply and distribution arms and explosives-the unimaginable scientific and technological developments has affected people who are far-far away from the action of war or in no way to war..tllis development in technology not only affects the war time but also affected the post war time-makes it equally if not more destructive devastating inhuman.

According to Hobsbawn the time period of the internal wars is unending. As if we are living in a never ending war time.

Chechnya, Srilanka,Iran—it is a current superpowers of the world are suffering from economic insecurity. -whole world is sitting on the pit of volcano-the one which is one the verge of eruption and the suppressed feelings of frustration anger disillusionment will come out as the lava..

And the common people, war, violence, terrorism and ways to fight it back-to understand all of these-we had to go back to the ancient city of Greece, ‘Thebes’. We go back With Sophocles.

Walking with Antigone I have wondered a million times-why is thousand 2rs old play can stilll become a theatre ia 2015!!! Is it because of its literary credence! NO. It’s because of the writer’s wisdom to the time…the future wisdom which saw the this hatred will never cease to cease to exist-decades and decades will go by.the warmth of the sun will naturally fall on the banks of Dirker sometime- mankind’s hunger for power will bring darkness even before sunset.will be darker even than the night. As Hobsbawn has written “a tentative recast: war the twentieth century is not likely to be as murderous as it was in the seventeen. But armed violence creating disproportionate suffering and loss, will main omnipresent and endemic-occasionally epidemic- in a large part of the world the prospect of a century of peace is remote”.

Jodi aar Ekbar

When you reach at the beaches of Bajrapur, you have to take shelter at the Neptune Happy Lodge. In this moment, to spend their holidays, Government officer, Ratikantha and his wife, Karuna have reached here along with writer Sanjay Ghosh, wife Atashi and on unmarried employed young girl, Bonolota. Hotel’s manager, Satyasindhu is always busy and the hotel’s kitchen is under the supervision of chef Bajralal.

All these guests are unhappy in their personal life. Writer Sanjay Ghosh demanded some space from his wife, so that he can continue with his creative practices and katikanta, ignoring his ill-educated wife. Karuna is lost in the luster of Bonolota. Bonolota too thinks that she is the right match for Ratikanta. Hurt by the dis-respect, Karuna decides to lead an independent life. Atashi regrets her marriage to Sanjay Ghosh, feels, instead of marrying a middle class economically deprived person, it would be much better if she had married a well settle rich businessman. Meanwhile, Bajralal steals Karuna’s ear rings and in the leadership of Atashi, the thief gets caught. By emotionally blackmailing the women, Bajralal saves himself. It is knlwn that, he has a dream of starting a business.

Once in a year, after the sun-set, comes the real owner of the hotel, ocean’s holy ghost-spirit, ‘Budka Jin’ with the help of Satyasindhu, he fulfills their dreams. Now, the story changes its course. In the shadows of the moon-light, popular writer Sanjay Ghosh regrets his decision of rejecting Atashi, distancing her from his life, which makes him sad, and he turns alcoholic. Bajralal is now a huge businessman, so is his kleptomaniac instincts. Atashi has married Bajralal, but not happy, husband’s culture of living, makes her unhappy. Ratikanta has now fallen in love with independent Karuna.

Henow, is un-interested in his wife, Bonalota. Budka Jin takes information from Satya and comes to know that they all are still unhappy, he takes back his boon. The relationships again go back to their previous form, but the guests are confused. In search of truth, they try to find Satya, but Satya is found nowhere. He at that moment has framed into the assistant of Budka Jin, Chotka Jin.

Meghnad Badh Kabya

The play opens with an invocation of the Muses, Devi Saraswati in particular to spire the narrator with an inward surging that could make him sing a song of a lofty theme describing the fall of a mighty hero.

The narrator, Kathak, leads us to Lanka, to the court of Ravana who laments the death of Birbahu, his son, who took charge of the battle and lost it, with his life, after a valiant struggle. While facing a position to answer for the loss of so many worthy war-heroes that is caused by the king’s abduction of Seeta, Ravana defends it with the zeal of an indomitable Kshatriya who would rather stake everything to fight as enemy than to probe a cause.

Instead of looking for the next general he decides to go to lead the war himself. But Meghnad, most valiant of his sons arrives, intervenes, and offers his service. Ravana after some hesitation gives his consent and orders the ritual for his ablution, the act of”Abhisheka”.

The narrator then takes us to the celestial abode of Lord Indra, the God of the Gods. We find him shaken with fear for Meghnad who once made him accept a most humiliating defeat in direct confrontation. Indra devises to court the favour of Lord Shiva through Devi Uma (Durga) and win from him the power ammunition to kill Meghnad. Pleased with Indra and Rama’s devotion Uma sets forth to tempt Lord Shiva to an act of wild love-making and thus elicit from him a device for the slaying of Meghnad. Lord Shiva, even though seeing through the design, could not help to be enamoured by the charm of Parvati. On his advice, Indra is sent to Maya, the Dark Goddess of Magic and illusion, who gives the Weapons that, would see an end of Meghnad. The act of winning of “Astralabha” ends here.

With the narrator we now come to the pleasure-garden of Prince Meghnad where Pramila is waiting for her husband. On getting the news of siege of Lanka and his army, Pramila, with the force of her warlike Amazons, sets forth to free Lanka and the Prince from the enemy’s clutch. But before the majestic female troupe, resplendent with the glory of the heavenly powers,

Rama reverently makes way for the army to enter the city of Lanka. Pramila and Meghnad, who were rejoicing their union, prepare and brace themselves for the fateful vigour and prepare for a battle that would be decisive. Hence ends act “Samagama”.

The narrator now comes to the act of ‘Preparation for the battle’ or “Udyog”. In both of the camps, of Rama and Ravana the Preparation is showed with great detail. One is held by Maya, Lakshmana, brother of Rama goes deep in the heart of the offers his devotion to the War-goddess and asks for her blessings. It is granted upon him, on the way, he meets Lord Shiva, protector of Lankan Dynasty, who also gives way to him. Heaven and earth join hands to wreck Meghnad. Unaware of all the fateful design Meghnad takes leave of his beloved wife and Parents and sets out to the battle. Only a shadow of an omen flickers in the heart of Pramila, who perceives this could be their last meeting on this earth.

The fifth act, the slaying of the Hero or “Dadh” begins with Lakshmana and Bivishana, the traitor- brother of Ravana; Bivishana leads Lakshmana through to the secret passage of the Nikumbhila temple where Meghnad, after offering his pray would attain invincibility, while unarmed and busied with the rituals, Meghnad was confronted by the duo and challenged to a war. Meghnad asks their leave to collect his weapons according to the charter of the war regulations. But Lakshmi declines and empowered by Maya, kills him in an unjust fight. Bivishana also feels a pang of conscience over the fall of the mighty hero and laments his own plight as a traitor.

The eight and the last act, the narrator leads us to the scene of cremation where pyre is lit for Meghnad. Pramila also climbs the fiery bed where her husband is lying. An armistice is declared by Rama for the funeral. The whole city of Lanka mourns the death of Meghnad, the last of the Mohican.

Jeebon Mrityu

‘Kadambini’ a young aged widow of Ranirhat Zaminder-Sarada Shankarts house. Satish a small child in this house and he is the only friend of Kadambini. Once at the evening of rainy day Kadambini got fever and suddenly passed away. But she alive at burning ghat and then everybody run away from burning ghat. Kadambini feel alone. Next day moming one Baul singer notice her on the road side, he take away to the house of Kadambini’s childhood friend Jogmaya. This is the new home for Kadambini which is in another village-Nischindipur. But Kadambini is unable to adjust here, she feel alone again and she is in the trauma.

Jogmaya and her husband Sripati feel that something wrong is going on and Sripati try to search it. He visit at Kadambini’s father-in-law’s house-Ranirhat. But Sripati informed that Kadambini passed away month long before and buried her dead body in well. Sripati come back to home and tell her wife Jogmaya. They chased to Kadambini, then Kadambini leave this house and come on the road. She try to see once her only friend Satish and rich to her old house at Ranirhat. Unfortunately eve body refused her existence. Kadambini proved her life by sacrificing her life.

Oedipus

A terrible plague descends upon Thebes and king Oedipus, anxious for the fate of his kingdom, spends restless nights with queen Jocasta. Oedipus, son of Corinthian king Polybus, fled from Corinth on hearing from the mouth of Apollo’s oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother which led him wandering to Thebés. Now, Oedipus is tormented with the thought that he might have brought his ill fate to Thebes also. Jocasta tries to console him with her strong disbelieve in any kind of prophecy as she has seen falseness of the same in case of murder of her exhausted king Laius.

In the gloomy morning distressed citizens of Thebes gather in front of the palace to appeal for help from Oedipus who have earlier saved them from deadly sphinx. Oedipus tells them that he has already sent his brother-in-law Creon to consult the oracle. Croon returns with a prophecy that killer of king Laius is the root cause of all this sufferings and he must be punished to save people of Thebes. Search for the killer begins. Blind prophet Tiresias is consulted. His effort to get truth from heavenly mouth failed. Tiresias raises Laius from his abode of eternal night and the dead king points his finger to new king Oedipus. Oedipus refuses to accept this blame because as per Oracle Laius was destined to be killed by his own son and Oedipus is not his son. Oedipus accuses Creon and Tiresias for conspiring against him.

A messenger from Corinth enters with the news of King Polybus’ death and it reveals that Oedipus is an adopted child of Polybus. Oedipus’ journey to unveil the truth behind his birth starts. The messenger reveals that years ago a shepherd from Thebes gave him a baby whose feet were pierced with a pin. Later the childless king of Corinth adopted the child and named him Oedipus. Oedipus summons that particular shepherd and on interrogation the awful truth comes out; Oedipus is the son of King Laius and Jocasta. Word of Apollo prevails. On his way from Corinth to Thebes, Oedipus killed his father Laius and afterwards married his mother Jocasta. With the discovery of the awful truth, Jocasta kills herself and Oedipus tears out his own eyes.

Shantamati Katha

Once upon a time in the Green Country there were two princesses – Dhanyabati and Shantamati. As time passed they grew into two nubile women. Shantamati, the younger sister, had a talking horse called Ghatat who had been her companion since childhood.

Two sister, accompanied by Ghatat, travel to the Yellow Country to participate in an assembly where they would be able to choose their own husbands. The elder sister Dhanyabati is selfish and of wicked nature. By a cruel manipulation of circumstances she manages to present Shantamati as her attendant.

Dhanyabati also dupes the prince of the Yellow County into marriage and gets Ghatat killed. But that does not stop Ghatat from talking as its severed head, by the grace of the gods, retains the ability to talk.

In the Yellow Country Shantamati gets the job of tending the royal ducks. Here she meets her love Manav, a young man in the same profession. Meanwhile, the minister of the Yellow Country accidentally comes to know about the misdeeds of Dhanyabati. He starts blackmailing Dhanyabati and, with her connivance, hatches a conspiracy to usurp the throne of the Yellow County. But Bulbul, the maid at the royal household, who is also the concubine of the minister, divulges the conspiracy to the king.

Consequently the minister is arrested and the real identity of Shantamati is revealed; though that only adds to her discomfiture, as the revelation of Shantamati’s real identity makes Manav move away from her. The prince of the Yellow Country now wants of forsake wicked Dhanyabati and marry Shantamati. The king of the Yellow Country is flora and fauna – has found a new meaning of life. She has learnt to dream differently.

46 Gananatya Street

The story of present time. The place is a burning ghat / crematorium. People wait while some dead body comes, probably of some near and dear ones, to bid farewell to the deceased one. Sometimes the waiting seems to be e endless. – zesh and Pallavim-e well established in society. Probably they two are waiting come near anu dear one who is no more. Arunesh and Pallavi are quite aged. It is unlikely for them to wait at a crematorium. Busy people do not have much time to spend for the dead ones today. Is it for the fear for future that compels them come? Death is inevitable to everyone. None can escape death – the ultimate destination.

The rich always try to escape from the crudity of reality. Anunesh and Pallavi are the representatives of the page three people who always maintain a safe distance from the common people. Such people are common in television talk shows. They express their mock sorrow for the ordinary men in media. The only thing they care about is their own plethora, power and self. Their life centres round

-tee shops and shopping malls, expensive cars and long drives. Their lifestyle remains unattainable to the common people. But these elites too have to come to the crematorium one day. Their vanity, hypocrisy, wealth – all become meaningless on Day of Judgment. They remain truthful neither to each other nor to themselves, gradually their sense of false security becomes unmasked. Thus the so called Intellectuals are exposed in front of the ultimate reality of life – DEATH.

Gabeshana

Dr. Som has become successful on the research of zine and DNA change of human beings. After publishing the news in newspaper, politicians & frustrated guardians come to Dr. Som for the change of their DNA to become successful. Politician wants to become MLA, owner of foreign liquior shop wants to change the DNA of her son to convert his son into doctor. Another frustrated mother wants to convert her daughter’s DNA to make her Madhuri Dixit. No one wants their children to be a social worker, Rabi Thakur or Swami Vivekanda or Mother Teresa. During DNA changing operation of a girl, conflict between mother’s love and interpretation of success comes out. Finally girl wants to become Mother Teresa instead of Madhuri Dixit.

Sher Afghaner Tiner Talowar

A strange incident. One night in one of Kolkata’s auditorium suddenly the Utpal Dutta and Ajitesh Bandopadhay were seen, an astonishing occasion.

Utpal Dutta, dressed in the attire of his favourite character — “Madhusudhan Dutta” and Ajitesh Bandhopadhay in his favourite character attire — “Sher Afghan’s”.

Two legendary creators, with two different philosophies of life, two different path of theatre, when they met, they had immense respect for one another. Even in death they spread showers of questions, on one another with happiness.

In this world, in present scenario, where asking a question, and expecting an answer is considered illegal, if somebody asks, with mistake, he is considered to be a person who holds negative thoughts against that person.

In in this production, two creators do ask question to one another without any inhibitions, just to prove the fact that, ‘asking questions are good — they are only to answers’ —nothing else.

Questions are actually based on the roots of our Heritage and Culture. Two legends sometimes on self-inspired approach, find words ‘mouthed’ by these characters in the actual plays. The questions and answer sessions along with healthy debate, the dramatic situation developing between them, reaches its extreme, when suddenly, the spirit of a stage actresses interrupts their intense discussion. Two spirits of theatre activists show their presence later.

The actresses spirit (the spirit of the women theatre activist) with her series of questioning — enters into the personal lives of these two theatre legends, along with theatrical lives, leaving them surprised, thoughtful and speechless, sometimes— suddenly one living character enters the play, he is a police officer. By their influence, he denies all the logically reasoning debates and thoughts and leaves. But within the closed auditorium hearing ghostly voices of the legend and other, the neighbours awake, a panic surrounds the air, with a chaos resulting in a police intervention.

The auditorium is surrounded by the police officers & men. The crowd and police, declare a war against one another. At that moment, three shadows— sculptures in their heavenly voice, appeal for an unseen journey, or a beginning. Like a history gives its teachings, when and where, present is lost in a confused tug-of-war, a confused existence.

Sunno Sudhu Sunno Noy

Set on a short story by Shorodindu Bandopadhyay. Ramrmohan, a painter, is in denial of his step mother’s insistence to marry leaves and and takes a train to the suburbs. I-le starts living in an abandoned house. Immediately he realizes the presence of a ghostly character inside the house.

Rammohan cannot see but senses her presence. As Gourmohan settles in new environment, mysterious things starts happening. Gradually the roommates come to terms with each other and Gourmohan searches and tries to see her.

Bonobhumi

Rehearsal room, and its practices, with that, buildup of moments, moments of a life, moments of surviving, surviving to its true sense.

When Sri Rabindranath Tagore, penned, his short story, “BHULSWARGO”, he knew for sure, about 100 years later or more, ‘relevance’ is the word we would shout to. A ‘wrong-heaven’, as the name illustrates, describes the journey of a common man, who is ‘nothing’ but a human, who is out of the rat-race, who is content, who is peaceful, who is creative, and who is living!!

When this common man dies, instead of taking him to the ‘right’ heaven, if we find one, he is mistakenly taken to the ‘wrong’ heaven — where the people are chained and forced to run the rat-race, discontentment, greed, misery, protocol life-style, is their only way of ‘living’. The people are machines here. The common man feels lost, and roams around confused, the only friend he gets is the dying tree, which he waters daily, to bring it back to life.

The understated life continues, until he meets a girl, who understands his ideologies of life, or tries to understand. “Life”, in its true attire surrounds the ‘wrong’ heaven, all the people living there are influenced by the magic of “Life”. They start realizing the true essence of life ——Journey Continues.

So does the rehearsals of these NGO students under the guidance of their young director and a forest ranger officer, who try to survive all odds in their practical life (‘wrong’ heaven’) to portray “ Bhulswarga” — ‘Wrong heaven’, to the people living in those forests, to make them aware of true life, the true essence of nature.