Play portrays pangs of Partition

Chandigarh, August 16

The five-day long Punjabi theatre festival ‘Yatra-1947 Rangmanch Utsav’ organised by the Punjab Sangeet Natak Akademi under the aegis of the Punjab Arts Council opened at Randhawa auditorium here on Thursday.

Kahan Singh Pannu, a bureaucrat, inaugurated the theme-based festival which was presided over by PAC Chairman Surjit Patar in the presence of Sukhbinder Singh, Revenue Minster of Punjab, and Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Minster of Rural Development and Panchayat, Housing and Urban Development.

The theatre festival dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Partition 1947 and Madeeha Gohar, the firebrand thespian of Pakistan, commenced with the staging of a Punjabi play ‘Yatra -1947’ by Manch Rangmanch Amritsar.

Conceived, written and directed by Kewal Dhaliwal, the play chronicled the poignant pangs of the partition, sufferings of the innocent people on both sides of the border. Kewal wrote the script which was based on the works of about 40 poets from India and Pakistan. Eminent poets whose works echoed the partition woes include Nadeem Gauhar, Ustad Daman, Arshad Jahan and others from Pakistan and Amrita Pritam, Surjit Patar, Dr Harbhajan Singh, Joga Singh, Inderjit Singh and others from India. — OC