Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Mar 20: Rajneesh Gupta’s Dogri play Shah Shahni, a heart-rendering tale of two lovers who suffered lifelong pain in separation emerged as a saga of Partition memory as well as an ode to Jammu city’s grand secular tradition which was shattered by the mindless aftermath of the 1947 division of the Indian sub-continent.
The play staged as the sixth presentation of the ongoing Festival of Plays 2020-2021, is a good addition to the corpus of modern Dogri literature on the partition. Presented by Drishay Nat Manch, directed by Meera Tapsavi, who was assisted in direction by Pawan Verma, opens with an old man in his eighties conversing with a sweet shopkeeper that he has come from Pakistan and was a native of Jammu before the Partition. An old woman called Shahni starts talking to the old man and soon discovers him to be her childhood neighbour Muslim boy called Shah. Both start reminiscing about their teenage days in the lanes of Jammu. The pain of unexpressed love comes to the fore as both had remained unmarried all these years. The play ends with a sad note when Shah leaves with a promise to return.
The script with dialogues in chaste Dogri interspersed with adages, idioms and comic phrases kept the audience engrossed in the saga of unfulfilled love of two humans who stood separated by the artificial barrier boundaries.
Performances of Meera Tapasvi and Pawan Verma were applauded for their successful portrayal of the elderly characters of Shahni and Shah respectively. With their halting body movements, dazed and confused, wheezing and coughing, trembling voices, both actors in ethnic costumes and the fitting makeup kept the audience spellbound. The thoughtful light design also helped to highlight the actors’ emotions.
Other members of the cast were Harbans Lal, Shahid Khan, Neelam Malvi and Sweety Jyotshi. In the chorus were Ankush Bhasin, Muskan Gupta, Vani, Sahil Sangral, Surbhi and Sahil Talla. Make-up was by Dr Kamal Sahmra, music by Surinder Manhas and set by Virji Sumbli.
Tomorrow, ‘Lakshya The Aim’, will perform Hindi play Miss Leela.
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