Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Dec 16: Staged on tenth day of ongoing annual drama festival, ‘Mein Jinda Hoon, the play in Hindustani staged by Nav Durga Kala Manch, highlighted degeneration of values by enumerating list of social maladies and contentious issues plaguing the contemporary India.
Playwrights Prakash Shah and Shashi Bhushan using literary device of flashback show a senior citizen dreaming that if spirits of national heroes; Gandhi ji and Subhash Chander-who dedicated their lives to fulfill to dream of independent country and a polity espousing Justice, liberty, equality and fraternity for all its citizens-were to visit present day India, what would they see.
Gandhi ji and Subhash Chander Bose after coming down from astral world, encounter personified versions of concepts like Bharat Mata, Traditional Indian Society, Culture, a City, a Village, Contemporary Society. And the Kal Yuga who takes credit for all the down gradation and blind lure of western culture. More problems like unemployment, corruption, growing credo of intolerance, award vapsi and division of Greater India as two countries and consequent enmity between people with common roots-cause great pain to the national heroes.
The dismal scenario ends with a utopian solution of reuniting of India and Pakistan as one great nation. The old man after his reverie is still full of hope as he finds his two grandchildren dressed up as Gandhi ji and Subash Chander Bose and singing ‘Sare Jahan se Accha Hindustan Hamara’.
The idealistic vision of national heroes pitted against the contemporary maladies highlighted in the play kept the audience engrossed. The team of actors directed by Shashi Bhushan carried the play well. The cast included Sanjay Sonkar as Gandhi ji, Ashish Bhat as Subash Chander Bose, Avni Jain as Bharat Maa, Ganesh Singh Rajput as Mahanagar, Parveen Kumar as Gaon, Irfana Banoo as Sanskriti, Hassan Malik as Samaj, Sandeep Sharma as Naya Smaj, Devanshu Raina as Sainak/Mazdoor Neta, Anoop Goswami as Kalayug, Shishupal Khajuria as Boss/Neta, master Tatvagya Bhargav as Little Gandhi ji, Daksh Sagoch as little Subhash Chander Bose and Shashi Bhushan as Lekhak/Sharabi/Lala. Tomorrow ‘Pancham’ will present Mahesh Elkunchwar’s Pratibimbh under direction of Ifra Kak.
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