Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 8: Second phase of the Theatre Festival by Jammu Kashmir Academy of Art Culture and Language began here today with the presentation of Dogri play “Anney Da Haathi”.
Based on the famous wisdom tale ‘The elephant of the blinds’ the play is a hard-hitting satire on politicians’ approach in handling the affairs of the country.
The play “Anney Da Haathi” has originally been written in Hindi and translated in Dogri by Dr Sudhir Mahajan and presented by Society of Environment, Education and Modern Art, Jammu, here today at Abhinav Theatre, Jammu.
Bharat Singh, Secretary JKAACl, in his message to the theatre fraternity on the inauguration of Theatre Festival Phase 2nd, said that the same festival is also going on in Kashmir Division wherein eight Theatre groups of the Valley are participating to showcase their talent with the new and old play scripts.
‘Anney Da Haathi’ strongly raises social evils, politics, women’s discussion, democracy, governance and the rights of the people. According to an ancient proverb, five blind men find an elephant and by touching its different parts, they regard it as a rope, soup, pole, wall and dragon respectively and start arguing with each other. The elephant then goes away. But these blinds create different opinions, promises and creeds and create their own impression which is completely opposite to the reality. To give a dramatic conclusion to the story, one is given the charge of the elephant so that he can inform the public about the elephant. But this blind becomes corrupt, power-hungry and selfish, and the public’s representative kills the facilitator because he used to talk politics is in danger from those who raise questions.
Ultimately, this play represents an excellent genre, through songs and cheeky dialogues, entertains the audience of every class and gives a point of view.
Cast of the play were Sutradhara, Neeraj Sethi; Anni, Neha Sharma;
Anna 1, Abhay Singh Rajput; Anna 2, Javed Gill; Ann3, Aman Sangra; Ann4, Sunil Sharma; Rhythm Jan, Mohd Janu Composer Javed Gill, Singers Rajan Bhatti, Saroj Kumari and others.