If Greek philosopher Heraclitus was right in saying, “Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play”, most of us are busy climbing the staircase backwards. A lifetime spent by man in trying to be the man, and resulting into adults. What a shame! But let us give it a fair child’s trial. Today, right from razor to competition, it’s all cutting edge. How do we safekeep the wonderland of Alice in our hearts?
To wonder about the wonders of childhood, the National School of Drama is launching a children theatre festival, “Jashn-e-Bachpan”, from October 1 to 15. The 10th series of “Jashn-e-Bachpan” will showcase the works of theatre groups and institutions working with and for children. These groups represent various regions and languages from across the country, which seeks to bring theatre directors practising theatre with children from the varied backgrounds.
The festival will open with Umang theatre group’s Rang-Umang-A tribute, paying homage to the pioneering children theatre personality Rekha Jain. Out of the 28 plays scheduled for the event, productions of Germany, Bangladesh and Nepal have been highlighted as special feature.
Famous puppeteer Anurupa Roy’s The Little Blue Planet and Bengali director Kamalesh Chakraborty’s Marks ISM on Day Two are expected to showcase two styles and forms of theatre all together. Productions in various languages such as Malyalam, Kashmiri, Kannada, Manipuri, Aassamese, Bengali, Hindi and English establish the diverse face of the festival. The participant will also get a chance to see each other’s work and absorb energies, skills and processes in order to gain inspiration for their future work. Interactive sessions with the participating directors, group leaders and members have also been scheduled. This session is intended to explore in-depth not only the process behind their performance but also to emphasise the role of theatre for children. The NSD claims that this particular festival is not only oriented towards the audience from Delhi or CWG but also aims to explore interpersonal exchange primarily by exchange-oriented interactions among performing teams.
“Jashn-e-Bachpan” was an initiative of Sanskaar Rang Toli of the NSD, established on October 16,1989. Formerly known as Theatre-in-Education Company, Toli started with an objective of bridging the gap between passive education system and active method of learning by doing through its performances of varied nature plays, summer workshops on self-development and social integration, Sunday club for devising original performances with children, workshops with teachers on effective teaching-learning process. All these activities are operated round the year as per the children’s annual school calendar in Delhi and other parts of the country.
After 10 years of intense interaction with various theatre personalities and groups, the Toli decided to find a way out to bring the major works together on a single platform. A a result, Jashn-e-Bachpan was born in 1998 and it continued to be its national theatre event from then onwards.
A child may lose her pencils, but never the sketches she etched in her mindscape. If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy and if they live with encouragement, they learn to be confident.
They hold the key to the future. It requires a sense of responsibility to design any event for the most sensitive lot of the world. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the NSD plays the role with a sense of proportion for the upcoming theatre buffs.