Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 29: Two major plays featured on the second day of ‘Jammu Youth Theatre Festival’ organised by Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Jammu and North Zone Cultural Centre, Patiala jointly at the Auditorium of Govt College for Women Gandhi Nagar, Jammu. Mind-blowing themes and innovatively designed and directed, these vibrant plays were presented by the students of Government SPMR College of Commerce and MAM College who were trained and groomed under the able guidance and direction of Ravinder Sharma and Abhishek Bharti respectively. These plays were produced in an intensive theatre workshops organised by ICCR and NZCC jointly to encourage and train new talent in theatre.
The first play of the day ‘Final Solutions’, an award-winning play written by Mahesh Dattani was directed by Ravinder Sharma, focuses on the issue of communalism. The story covers several decades of communal disharmony, beginning with the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan and shifting its focus to the present day communal strife. It explores the varying lives and attitudes of three generations of a Gujarati family belonging to the urban middle class. The interplay of the characters highlights the religious bigotry and the stereotypes of religious identity that are highly prevalent in India, more so among the Hindus and the Muslims. The play highlights tolerance as the only clear and positive solution to such mindless strife – a solution that is highly relevant to all communal conflicts around the world.
The second play ‘Gagan Damama Bajyo’ written by Puesh Mishra and Directed by Abhishek Bharti based on the life and ideology of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, highlights the fact that though the British rule has ended yet another form of tyranny has begun. For the common man only the rule has changed but their exploitation and harassments have not ended. In contrast to the non-violence of Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh was for a revolutionary end to the British rule. Though a revolutionary, Bhagat Singh wasn’t carried away by his extreme ideas. He was a visionary also. Though he shared the Mahatma’s vision of an independent India, the differences on the means to attain it always persisted. The play traces the relevance of Shaheed Bhagat Singh ideology in the present scenario. The play starts in 1965 in Delhi where Battukeshwar Dutt a comrade is hospitalized and Markand Trivedi asks him “Is today’s India is really the India of Bhagat Singh dream”. The story of play then goes back to 1921 and comes back in 1994 and ends in Kanpur, where Shiv Verma another comrade of Bhagat Singh is alive. The play reflects the work and ideology and thoughts and struggle of Bhagat Singh with glimpses right from his childhood to the end of life. It also shows the struggle for freedom with his contemporary’s Sukhdev and Rajguru. “Gagan Damama Bajyo” highlights the ideological learning of Bhagat Singh and also tries to project his thinking pattern.
Tomorrow two plays ‘Apne Apne Kshitj’ and ‘Natak Ki Talaash’ will be staged on the final day of the Jammu Youth Festival under the direction of Bipin Gupta and Sumeet Sharma at 11.30 am and 1 pm respectively by the students of Govt College for Women Parade and GGM Science college Jammu.
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