Chainpur Ki Dastaan has a dig at corruption

SD Sharma

Chandigarh, January 20

The Abhinav Rangmandal Ujjain, led by creative director Sharad Sharma, staged a Hindi comedy play, 'Chainpur ki Dastaan', on the sixth day of the TFT National Winter Drama Festival, under way at the Randhawa auditorium, here today. 

Conceptualised, directed and scripted by playwright  Ranjit Kapur with major aberrations to Nikolai Gogol's classic play, 'Inspector General', to suit the Indian milieu and explore the means and channels employed by corrupt politicians  or officers for exploiting the credulous masses. 

The play is structured in the ambience of Chainpur where the Diwan sahib, doctor, kotwal, judge and postmaster form a caucus to harass the public and extract money from them. Meanwhile, a rumour gets afloat that the Raja has deputed a secret  agents to take stock of the situation in state and the residents mistook two absconders from Vihad jail approaching village as the  secret agents and accord them due respect.   So much so that later on the diwan has arranged the marriage of his daughter with absconder Dilshad Khan and other prisoner also with planning to marry village teacher's daughter. 

At the same time, the new kotwal, from whose custody the prisoners had escaped arrives in town and threatens to arrest them but both fugitives had been now a part of the nexus with Diwan and others who saved them. The situational comedy weaved around the contemporary corruption scenario kept the audience enthralled.