Aarushi Thakur Rana
In last 35 years, Jammu emerged as one of the most happening centres of India in terms of Children Theatre. The movement was started by Natrang in the year 1990 with the first ever Children’s summer theatre camp in Jammu under the direction of Balwant Thakur and produced the play ‘Mere Hisse Ki Dhoop Kahan Hai’ which later created a history by becoming the longest living children play of India. This play also made Natrang the first Indian theatre group which travelled with children the longest ever distances covering from Jammu to Mumbai, Goa, Bhuvneshwar, Guwahati, Thiruvanathapuram, Hyderabad and Kolkata repeatedly. After Kolkata, Pune, Mumbai and Delhi, Jammu became the fifth children’s theatre happening cities of India. Children plays of Natrang came in a huge demand and they started featuring in all the major theatre festivals of India including ‘Jashan-e-Bachpan’ of National School of Drama, New Delhi where in addition to ‘Mere Hisse Ki Dhoop Kahan Hai’, ‘Ek Tha Gadha’ and ‘Aap Hamaare Hain Kaun’ were featured. In last 35 years over 5,000 children have been trained in theatre by Natrang under Sumeet Sharma, Neeraj Kant, Anil Tickoo and Sanjeev Gupta and Gauri Thakur. Natrang also collaborated with National School of Drama and National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama, New Delhi and brought top professionals of Children Theatre to Jammu including the great Padmashiri Barry John to create a highly skilled team for strengthening and accelerating the children theatre movement in Jammu. With the motive to give a new flip to this unique initiative, Balwant Thakur visited all the major centres of children theatre in U.K, USA, Germany, Italy, China, and Singapore and equipped himself with the latest developed techniques of personality transformation through the art of theatre. Fact remains that theatre offers a unique learning experience, as it is an interactive art form that requires active participation from both the performers and the audience. Theatre children are not mere observers but become active participants in the learning process. Theatre exercises can encourage critical thinking, analysis, and creativity, and can foster empathy and understanding of others’ perspectives. Theatre is a creative art form that allows students to explore their imagination and develop their artistic skills. By participating in theatre activities, children can learn to think outside the box and come up with unique solutions to problems. This can foster creativity and innovation, which are valuable skills in any field. Theatre is an effective tool for promoting transformative learning in children. It offers a unique, active learning experience that encourages, collaboration, emotional intelligence, creativity, and confidence building.
Understanding and recognizing such kind of magical powers of theatre art, Natrang as a mission, made all earnest efforts in introducing theatre amongst children in Jammu. The resultant work surprisingly brought laurels and top Indian honors for Jammu and Kashmir in the field of children theatre. Amazingly over 50 young artists of Natrang have won National Scholarships from Government of India in the field of theatre which again is historic record. One product of Natrang’s children theatre, Vrinda Gujral became the topper of the popular Sony TV show ‘Sab Se Bada Kalakaar’ where over 50,000 children from all over the country brilliantly contested. The Summer Children Theatre camp-2025 starting from 1st June is going to be the 26th in the series. As rightly said “It’s easy to attain but very difficult to retain”, Natrang went out of the ways to establish this legacy in Jammu.It has been a huge task but credit goes to Sumeet Sharma who is Masters in Dramatics in addition to a National Awardee is currently the in charge of children and youth wing of Natrang. He holds a record of conducting 20 production oriented theatre camps for children followed by Neeraj Kant and Gauri Thakur. Many more contributed immensely including Mohit Sharma, Rohit Verma, Rahul Singh, Mohd. Yaseen, Karanpreet Kaur and Palshin Dutta in maintaining this momentum.
In last 25 years of working with children, Natrang innovated many new devices, approaches, methodologies, processes, games, exercises and scripts for children theatre. The world Theatre through Natrang’s children theatre camps was enriched by 35 new scripts and concepts of children theatre. This novice cause has not only brought Jammu on the national cultural landscape but also got international recognition when Balwant Thakur’s popular children play ‘Aap Hamaare Hain Kaun’ was translated into English, French and Creole and staged at many places outside India. While elaborating about his vision of children theatre, Balwant Thakur once said that if we want to see Jammu growing culturally, educationally and intellectually, together we all have to ensure that our children are introduced to this magical art of theatre. Even if we are not able to find opportunities of their participation on stage, we must ensure that they are taken to the witness live theatre shows in the largest interest of empowering them socially, creatively, culturally and intellectually. Theatre can magically transform their personalities, empowering them to succeed and excel in every sphere of life.
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