Celebrating bard’s folk tinge

Our Correspondent

Chandigarh, February 14

The Abhinaya Rang Manch, Hisar, presented a play, “Lakhmi Prem”, on the life of poet and playwright Dada Lakhmi Chand during the Tricity Theatre Festival at Navrnag Theatre here today. The play was directed by Manish Joshi.

Hailed as Shakespeare of folk dramatic arts, Lakhmi Chand came from a farmer’s family. Without any formal education, he took the musical and drama genres of ragini and saang to a spectacular level.

The play, structured in the rural ambience, brought to life events like Lakhmi’s birth in 1901 at Jaati Kalan village near Sonepat in Haryana; early life and his passion for folk music and drama.

His raginis and saangs, though lacking historical authenticity besides being a piece of fiction, are so popular among people that these are taken as reality.

Later, the hosts honoured prominent Pollywood actor, singer and playwright Harish Verma. Earlier in the day, theatre actors interacted with Sangeet Natak Akademi Award recipient Kamal Arora.