Pritam, Manto, Chughtai touch hearts
Bathinda, November 8
The audience got a chance to see some of the best and hard-hitting stories of Amrita Pritam, Ismat Chughtai and Sadat Hassan Manto on the seventh day of the 6th Natyam National Theatre Festival.
‘Main Kahani Hoon’ was staged at Balwant Gargi Open Air Theatre in Rose Garden.
The play opened with the story Sarifan, which brought to the fore the idea that violence begets violence.
A Muslim father, to avenge the rape and death of his daughter, rapes and kills a Hindu girl.
The father of the Hindu girl, in turn, stumbles out of his house, perhaps to rape and kill a girl of another community.
Written by Sadat Hassan Manto, the story is left open-ended, perhaps to showcase that violence and revenge can never have a logical end and those involved go on and on.
The story started with the cries of ‘Sarifan! Sarifan!’ by the Muslim father and ends with ‘Bimla! Bimla!’, cries of the Hindu father.
The next story, ‘Junglee Bootyi’ by Amrita Pritam, followed the story of the naive Anguri, who is initially fearful of falling in love but finally falls for a chowkidaar.
Ismat Chughtai’s ‘Lajjo’ focused on the story of a grumpy middle-aged man who seduces his housekeeper into marrying him without foreseeing the problems that begin after the marriage.
The play was directed by Ravi Mohan, who is a self-trained actor and director and has been doing theatre for the past 20 years. — TNS
