Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 23: 5th Natrang Theatre Festival of 2018 concluded here today with the presentation of a comedy play ‘Bagia Bancha Ram Ki’ written by Manoj Mitra and directed by Adil Hussain at Abhinav Theatre, here.
Earlier, Natrang Director Balwant Thakur dwelt in detail about the journey of Natrang’s 35 eventful years.
“To mark these celebrations Natrang is organizing a festival of four plays every month since May, 2018 and so far 20 major plays of Natrang have successfully been performed in these festivals. Performing 20 major productions in four months by a single group is a record in the country. Natrang has set a target of showcasing 48 major plays by its own team of directors, designers and actors,” Balwant informed.
The play ‘Bagia Bancha Ram Ki’ exposes the greed for acquiring the property of ancestors. It revolves round Banchha Ram’s garden and how his son and grandson became victim of this greed. The play starts with exposing that “Chhekauri’s Ghost” hangs around Banchha Ram’s garden. Naukauri who is chhekauri’s son frequently changes his strategy to acquire the garden. One of the plans was that Banchha Ram would be given a monthly salary by his grandson and this incentive would last till the 95-year-old man dies. To this Banchha Ram agrees and the grandson Naukauri thinks that the end would come soon and Naukauri would become the owner of the garden after Banchha Ram’s death. But Gopi, Banchha Ram’s grandson tries to persuade him to sell off the garden so that he can establish a country liquor shop. The ‘Gharellu Chor’ (thief) who solely depends on the earnings of stolen fruits of Banchha Ram’s garden also tries to convince Banchha not to sell off the garden to Naukauri. Gopi gets married to Padma. Padma, Gopi and the thief decide to look after the old man and keep him alive till padma gives birth to her child. Things take a different turn when the child is born who is great grandson of Banchha. Banchha regains strength and vigour and on the contrary Naukauri seeing a dramatic change feels disheartened. Naukauri suffers his first heart attack and dies while the old man is alive and the haunted ‘Bagia’ remains.
The senior actors of Natrang who presented a superb performance include Neeraj Kant, Anil Tikoo, Sanjeev Gupta, and Sanjay Bhat. While Mahikshit Singh, Meenakshi Bhagat, Vrinda Sharma, Aafaque Khan, Manoj Lalotra, Ajay Lalotra, Sushant Singh Charak and Sheetal Jadhan also exhibited their talent in an impressive manner. Others who performed in the play included Deepali Sharma, Udit Sagar, Bhrigu Sharma, Jatin Sharma, Naresh Kumar, Itfiqar Mughal and Prerak Sharma.
Lights were executed by Pankaj Sharma whereas the sound was rendered by Gopi Sharma, while the public relations were looked after by Mohd Yaseen.
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