Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 22: A heart rendering performance of ‘Kharaashein’, a collage of Gulzar’s literary creations on riots was presented under the direction of Rahul Singh today in Natrang’s Sunday Theatre Series.
Three different stories on one common plot written by the celebrated writer Gulzar were presented and the stories were, ‘Ravi Paar’, ‘Hilsa’ and ‘Khuda Hafiz’.
‘Ravi Paar’ is the story of India at the time of partition. Religious fanatics of both sides showed no mercy on anyone who didn’t believed in their religion, after partition Darshan Singh and his family, takes asylum in a nearby Gurudwara.
Amidst all the chaos ‘Shahni’ gives birth to twins but one of the twins born was very weak and had very bleak chances of survival.
Meanwhile Darshan Singh gets the news of arrival of special train from India which has arrived to carry people to safer place. Darshan Singh reaches station in a rush only to find out train was extremely over-crowded, somehow he finds some space for himself and his family on the top of train. The story goes on….
The second story ‘Hilsa’ opens at the home of a Bengali couple where ‘Kanchan’ is cleaning fish which they have to consume in lunch, ‘Bhibhuti’, her husband returns back from the market empty handed as he could not get the news paper because of the riots. Somehow news paper also reaches their home, which was all filled with the news and pictures of gory consequences of riots. There was a very heart rendering story of a girl who was raped then died at the tender stage when she was pregnant. The writer has very subtly and beautifully related the pain of the girl with that of that ‘Hilsa’ fish who was caught when it was pregnant.
In the third story ‘Khuda Hafiz’, a near panic situation is created in the story of two men out in the night violating of curfew orders. Each confronts the other, demanding to know which community he belongs to, while shielding his own identity.
Natrang actors who gave splendid performances in the play included Mohit Kaul, Gautam Kumar, Goutam Sharma, Khushal Sharma, Shivam Singh and Ajay Lalotra. The lights were designed by Shivam Singh operated by Mahikshit Singh and the music was rendered by Bhisham Gupta. Aishwarya Sathe designed the sets. The show was coordinated by Mohd Yaseen and Manoj Kumar Lalotra did the presentations.
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