The script of Dr C.D. Sidhu’s 35th play did not disappoint. The play, Suthra Gaunda Riha, is like his earlier plays also set in the Doaba region of Punjab, known for the sweetness of its speech, and concerns a poor rural village family. Dr Sidhu is an iconic figure in Delhi theatre. He has single-handedly placed Punjab drama on the

theatre radar. He was born on March 14, 1934, in village Bhaam in Hoshiarpur district and went to the Khalsa High School in village Bhaddo. His interest in theatre began when his Master Govindram taught him to take pleasure in Shakespeare and Kalidasa. “He hustled us under the village banyan tree to do one-act plays. I even wrote a one-act play about Chhinda in the throes of love. I did not miss any naqal, raas or swang performance within five miles of the village,” he said.
Awarded a first division for his English honours degree from Punjab University College in Hoshiarpur, he was give a scholarship to study for his MA in Delhi’s Ramjas College.
While doing his Masters, he became enamoured of Bernard Shaw and read 15-20 of his plays. C.D. or Charan Das, as he was named by his father, also passed the Hindi Bhushan Prabhakar and Punjabi Vidwan exams alongside his MA. Being in the first 10 in the IAS exam, he was offered the IFS. If he had to go abroad he decided he would do his Ph.D. in Shaw. But luck was on his side. On August 9, 1947 when C.D. Sidhu set sail for the US on a Fulbright Scholarship, he had two books in his jhola — the collected plays of Bernard Shaw and the Shakespeare omnibus. The scholarship was to study American literature in Madison, Wisconsin. He managed to complete his work in five months with excellent grades and then given what he wanted a fat grant to do his work with Bernard Shaw.
He completed his theses in three years and returned to India where he got a teaching job at Delhi University’s Hansraj college where he has been ever since.
The years Sidhu spent in the US (1967-70) were the years of protests against the Vietnam War. He learnt a great deal from the street and other performances. He read almost 3,000 plays and for two years also taught American students Shakespeare and other British dramatists. On meeting Dr C.D. Sidhu, it is impossible to imagine that he is a man who has spent three years in the US and travelled all over Europe.
His rustic mien belies his scholarship. The first plays Dr Sidhu wrote was Indumati Satyadev. The first play I saw was Jhoote Suragan De in 1978 about the conflicting values in two generations of lower middle-class Punjabis settled in Delhi after Partition.
It was a loose script, but with authentic characters. Bhajno, set in the village where the eponymous woman is depicted as a no-nonsense person who uses her rustic guile and shrewdness to get her way, revealed more mature playwright. Dr Sidhu got his illiterate wife Gyan Kaur to act as his wife in another good play Baba Jito about snake worship.
Dr Sidhu, finding no takers for his plays, formed his own group, The Collegiate Drama Society in which his family of five daughters — and gradually their husbands and now their children — joined in. Sadly, Dr Sidhu himself directed the first few plays (later he studied direction by working with people like Barry John and enrolling as a student in Ebrahim Alkazi’s The Living Theatre in 1992). Fortunately, his musician daughter, Veena, married a colleague, Ravi Taneja, who was as besotted with theatre. Ravi has turned out to be a good actor, but is still lacking in the directorial department.
Suthra Gaunda Riha, like Dr Sidhu’s other plays, depends on the script for success. The village dhobi, played well by Ravi Taneja, is witness to the murder of a young man by the powerful Sarpanch and his family who disliked the idea of the man’s dalliance with a pretty girl in their family. The dhobi faces a moral dilemma: Should he keep quiet or tell the truth. The opposing sides make his life miserable. He receives threats to his life and to his grown daughter’s honour. His son is “accidentally” killed.
Before declaring his decision, the dhobi narrates a story (the highlight of the presentation).
An orphan girl brought up by an unkind man grows up hating everyone. This hate becomes pernicious when she is sold into a brothel. She grows up with this acrimonious anger and hatred for all. One day, she realises that she cannot continue to let this anger devour her. She decides she will love everyone, including her clients. When everyone fails to turn the waters of a flood away, they call this prostitute and lo and behold the water listens to her for she is the embodiment of truth and love.
The other plays at the festival include Suraj Di Koi Pithth Nai Hondi, written and directed by Dr Sahib Singh, which shows one of the methods used by Indian immigrants to stay in the country of choice; a fake marriage followed by a divorce.
In this case, the “marriage” works out too well and the immigration seeking uncle (Sahib Singh) and the Canadian resident niece (Rajinder Rosy) fall in love with each other. The play was neatly designed and the stage well used for the many games the couple play to proclaim their marriage and the many flashbacks and intimations of future vis-a-vis the family back home, faced by the traumatised uncle. An interesting script, which was well depicted, was somewhat dampened by the female actor’s inability to emote.
Harvinder Kaur, an NSD alumnus of 1993, who as per her commitment when she left the NSD repertory in 1999 has, unlike most of her Mumbai-flown co-alumni, remained in Delhi and worked for theatre. She has directed 14 plays in Punjabi and Hindi, written four play of which one received the best script and best actress awards at the last year’s Punjabi Festival. She received the Natsamrat best actress award last year.
Ik Hor Prem Kahani, written and directed by Harvinder, who is basically an actress and rues the fact that she has to create scripts and direct instead of just act, is an absorbing play about a young girl played by Deepa, who is married and staying with a relative till her husband comes for her, falls in love with the young son (Chandan Mehta) of her hostess, played with verve by Harvinder. This happens during the rehearsals of a play in which the two are cast.
In the meanwhile, Harvinder discovers that the husband is actually a pimp and is selling Indian women in Sydney. The Facebook generation, according to the playwright, has ideals too as the two lovers and some of their friends prove in their dignified reactions to the news.
The last play, Pyasaa Kaan (Thirsty Crow), written and directed by Paali Bhupinder Singh, is a long monologue, almost a discourse, on the educational system and general values of the youth.
The protagonist Atma Ram is the son of a Gandhian freedom fighter and tries to impose the values on his children.
The elder son’s revolt in drugs leads to his death, whilst the daughter runs away with a no-good Dalit. The long-drawn out-script has some clever turns, at points quite unexpected. Dialogues in doggerel verse come titillating at the end of a sequence.
To play an hour-long monologue, full of abstractions, is some achievement for which credit goes to Prof Gaurav Vij, who despite repetitious movements and excessive emoting, managed to keep the interest alive for more than half the play.