Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar, that is given annually to young talents in various categories of performing arts, this year saw theatre awards being given for playwriting, direction and acting.
Ramji Bali was given the award for writing. He has also directed and acted in his own play, Mujhse Pehli Si Mohabbat Mere Mehboob Na Maang, based on the life of the great Urdu poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz. The script was a neat summation of poet’s life with his poetry illustrating his moods during the period. He is arrested for subversive activity as a student. He joins the Communist Party and writes the song Darbar-e-watan mein jab ik din sab janey waley jayenge, Kuch apni saza ko pohanchenge, kuch apni jaza le jayenge.
He meets an American woman by chance during the protest rally where he is injured and she looks after him. They get married and have two daughters. He is jailed after he rebels against the atrocities of the British against the people of Pakistan. He gives up the diplomatic job he is doing for the British and he is jailed for a longer period. This long incarceration results in his writing some fine nazams and ghazals like Sham-e-gham kuch us nigah-e-naaz ki baaten karo, bekhudi badhti chali hai kuch raaz ki batein karo. The performance included a spirit of the arts who comes to him in moments of bliss and problems. She interprets his ghazals and nazams through Kathak dance. She is also his mentor and sympathiser. Ramji Bali has penned a comprehensive script that was well-performed by him and other actors. The music was rather good with some astonishing new compositions.
The award for direction was given to a number of people. Pravin Kumar, a fairly recent NSD graduate whose graduation production was an amazingly revolutionary interpretation of Dharamvir Bharati’s Andha Yug.
He presented solo show of Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh’s story Samjhauta, first seen during the Meta Awards where Pravin was awarded the best director award. The play belongs as much to actor Manvendra Kumar Tripathy who is both a consummate actor amd a good singer. He carries the tunes very well. He also has a mobile body which he uses to perfection in the performance.
The play has become much tighter since its performance at the Meta Awards where it stretched beyond boredom limits. This time the play was very structured. The story of an unemployed man who tries several jobs and is finally given a job in a circus. He hopes to become a clown but after a great deal of torture is forced to wear a bear skin and made to fight a tiger in the ring. During the fight the tiger whispers in the bear’s ear that he is also a human being.
The group which Pravin works in is named FACT and hails from Begusarai in Bihar. The play has a deeper truth — it shows the heartless world that the youth has to confront in his struggle for survival, he sacrifices his ideals, his ambitions to live. He is ready to live as an animal in order to survive. The musical chorus begins with the Chhati folk song where a female deer goes to the king and queen to beg for the skin of her mate who has been killed to feed the guests who are coming to celebrate the Chhati or the sixth day of the prince born to the queen, and is refused the request as the skin will be used to make a percussion instrument for the prince. The deer listens to the drumming emerging from the palace and remembers her mate. This plaintive song is taken up by Manvendra as he describes his rural background.
Rayanti Rabha was the only winner of the award for acting. Hailing from the Rabha tribe from the Goalpara district of Assam, Rayanti has trained under the Kalakshetra duo of Heisnam Kanhailal and his actress wife Sabitri for five years. Their influence is evident in her performance of the play Sati staged by her in the Rabha language. The play about Parvati who comes to perform a yagna and is burnt by Daksha making Shiva very angry. Finally, Shiva comes and carries Sati on his back. Without a translation, it was impossible to understand the conversation between Daksha and Parvati but the intensity of the argument could be gauged by the body movements of the actress. Rayanti is a very good performer and has learnt the craft of acting from Sabitri Debi very efficiently.
The other Rabha who was awarded for direction is Pabitra Rabha who has also been honoured for his achievement by a news channel last year. Pabitra graduated from Gauhati University before joining the NSD unlike Rayanti who is not educated. Pabitra, who comes from the town of Tangla in Udaigiri that is Bodoland, has directed plays in Bodo and Garo languages. He is currently involved in the group Darpan, which is the world’s only all-dwarf theatre group. He has some 40 dwarfs from Assam and lives in a commune with them. They enact incidents from their lives telling the audience about problems they confront.
The opening play of the ongoing festival organised by the Sahitya Kala Parishad in honour of Mohan Rakesh featured Adhe Adhure as a tribute to him. Staged by Ksshitij under the direction of Bharti Sharma was a traditional interpretation of the play. In the sense that the man in his various avatars was played by the same actor and Savitri was played as an embittered woman. There have been attempts to get four different actors to play the parts of the man but did not succeed in giving a separate meaning to the play. It remains a drama of the middleclass against a system that does not promise any change in the circumstances. Tripurari Sharma treated Savitri as a cheerful woman who looks around with a stoical expression. This worked to an extent in changing the depressing scenario.
Bharti Sharma, who played Savitri, was effective playing the character as a woman dissatisfied with her life. Suman Vaidya was good in the roles of the man. He drew laughter as Singhania, the vulgar boss of Savitri. The other characters, ladka played by Devas Dikshit, badi ladki played by Ankita Gusai and chhoti ladki played by Priyanka Sharma were also good in their roles.