Stories of small towns come together at Kanpur theatre festival

Kanpur was abuzz with the theatre festival that was being organised by Anukriti Rang Mandal, Kanpur with the help of the Ministry of Culture, New Delhi. The plays were staged from May 11 to May 14. The opening play was by host group; Gogol’s Inspector General adapted by Sanjay Sahai in Hindi as Jaanch Padtaal. It’s a story about a small township in India, where corruption rules. The latest news in the town is that the centre is sending a senior person to inspect the wrong doings in the township.

The mayor calls an emergency meeting where magistrates, civil servants, school inspector, postmaster and the kotwali head, all the officers are called. They mistake a youth who is staying in a hotel as the inspector who has come from Delhi. The mayor with the intention of saving his officers goes to the youth and convinces the young man to move into his house as a guest. The mayor’s second wife, Imarti and his daughter from the first wife, Baby, decide to attract the attention of the young man.

The humour is provided by the intervention of the mayor’s personal servants Goobar Singh, Jhulan, Lota Prasad and Chillmachi Miyaan. However most of them overact in the play and rather than providing humour they extend the play uneccessarily. When the young man, Kumar, disappears after having taken a lot of money from all the guilty officers in the town, the mayor realises that he has been fooled. In the meantime, the peon from the circuit house comes and tells the officers and the mayor that the Inspector General, sent by the Centre, has arrived.

The director and the lights designer, Krishna Saxena has tried to highlight the corruption in most cities and towns of India. He has been successful there but not in regulating his actors who gave some over-the-top performances. The mayor played by Mahendra Thuria and Kumar played by Vijaybhan Singh were competent though.

The second play presented by the Hum Thatre Group from Bhopal, Lala Hadaul, was in Bundelkhandi language and according to Komal Kalyan Jain, the writer, it is about life and the doings of Lala Hadaul who was the step-brother of Raja Jujhar Singh of Bundelkhand. A folk hero of the area, Lala Hadaul tried to bring about an equation between the upper caste and the lower caste, and was a great patriot of Bundelkhand; he took a vow to live and die for the region.

However, a rumour is spread by the court about Hadaul’s relationship with Jujhar’s wife, and Hadaul is forced to kill himself by eating kheer made by his sister-in-law. Actually the relationship between the two was of mother and son.

The play was marked by extremely good music, with Jujhar and his wife singing a beautiful duet together without any musical instruments. Rupesh Tiwari as Hadaul, is a fine actor and singer. Another actor on stage who was a good singer-actor was Kusum Shastri as Champavati, the wife of Jujhar Singh. For the sake of the play Pahaad Singh, the real brother of the king, was made into a villain who was the culprit behind Hadaul’s death.

The play was directed by Balendra Singh The musical compositions which were typically Bundelkhandi and reflected the culture of the state appealed to the audience.

The play He Matrabhomi by Rang Srishti of Patna, was confusing. It began rather theatrically with a pistol shot and the death of Chandrakar, an artist and journalist. The play goes on to say that the play, which is going to be staged today, was a play by Chandrakar, who was shot dead some time ago. He was working on the case of the uranium scandal where uranium, an expensive and rare mineral is secretly sold to neighbouring countries who could then use it to create nuclear bomb. When Chandrakar had collected enough evidence and material to catch the rich and politically powerful corrupt individuals, he is shot dead. The lack of noise made at his death tries to indicate the insensitive attitude of people in India.

Was Chandrakar merely a performer who entertained the crowd or was he also a person of integrity and patriotism Dr Radha Krishna Sahay, writer of the play raises this question and says that when new challenges confront you, you don’t feel anything else but regret and helplessness.

The play had a man playing the role of a tribal without any ability to counter the things that are said and done to him. He is made into a machine to carry the city dwellers from place to place, he is tortured and made to do hard physical labour until the day he realises his own power and confronts the city dwellers. No performance was worth mentioning, though each member tried to outdo the other in physical movements.

Munshi Premchand’s Sadgati, is a story which reflects the casteism and differences in society. Pandit Ghasiram and the Harijan toli, are the chief protagonists of the story. Dukhiya goes to Ghasiram to take out a date for his daughter’s shagun/marriage. But instead, Ghasiram sends him to cut wood for himself, which Dukhiya goes to do on an empty-stomach. After the day is over he goes back to Ghasiram’s house and asks his wife for a light for his beedi. The panditain throws the lit pieces of wood at him. Dukhiya decides to make the pandits house impure and goes on cutting wood. He faints and dies after a while. Ghasiram comes to see him and he finds him dead. To get somebody to pick up his body and ‘throw’ it away is a problem for Ghasiram. Nobody is ready to pick up the dead body. Finally Ghasiram himself ties a rope around the body’s one foot and drags him further away from his house and throws him below a distant hill. This last scene where Ghasiram drags the body is poignant.

This play was presented by Navankur Natya Samooh Paudi, Gadhwal. It was adapted and directed by Yamuna Ram who himself played the main role of Dukhiya. Pandit Ghasiram was played by Pradeep Bhatt. Both the protagonists in the play gave a good performance.