Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 8: Balwant Thakur’s Dogri play ‘Gatt’ was staged at the lawns of General Zorawar Singh Auditorium, University of Jammu here under its Sunday theatre series.
Based on Krishna Chander’s famous Urdu classic short story ‘Khadda’, the play was a hard hitting satire on the decay of human values. Balwant Thakur has adapted it in such a contemporary manner that the audience identifies with the play as of the socio-political happenings of their surroundings.
The play shows that one and all tend to shrink their own responsibilities and work and pass it on to others. This is symbolized by a person falling into a ditch whose pleas to help him come out remained unanswered by one and all.
Different people pass by him like surveyors, young men, religious leaders, cops, political leaders in power and a foreigner, but gave different excuses for their inability in extending help to him.
The situation becomes more dramatic when a Minister after a complaint from the public about the worsening of the road condition, makes a round of the area. The workers of the Public Works Department instead of taking out the man from the ditch put wooden planks over the ditch and create a stage for Minister’s public speech. Here the minister lists his development revolution and lashes at his opponents for cursing their Government for political gains. After the meeting gets over, the wooden planks were removed but no one paid any heed to the man, who fell in the ditch.
The slogans of the upliftment of the poor faded away with the flowing dusty wind. Finally a man from the audience appears and appeals everyone to render a helping hand to this common man who was still in the ditch despite having celebrated sixty-four years of India’s Independence. The play reflects the plight of the poor masses who continue to suffer for want of help from those at the helm of affairs.
The artists namely Shivam Singh acted as aadmi, Mohammad Yaseen as karamchari 1, Sachin Saini as karamchari 2, Rishav Sharma as aashiq-1 and neta, Vedhant Malhotra as aashiq-2, Abhi Bargotra as foreigner, Rajat Salgotra as sadhu, Goutam Sharma as police cop and Akshit Kaul as chela.
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