Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, May 26: Surendra Verma’s Hindi play ‘Aathvan Sarg’ staged by Rangshala, at the Abhinav Theatre, here today, emerged as an artistic take on the debate of creative freedom viz a viz the notions of public decency and morality.
The story of the play revolves around Kalidas, one of the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language and recognition of his creative genius by Chandra Gupta and resultant royal patronage, also portrays the prevailing socio-cultural conditions under which citizens exhibited high aesthetic sensibilities.
The plot of the play, however, deals with that phase of Kalidas’s life in Ujjaini, when he was writing his acknowledged master piece ”Kumar Sambhava”. The trouble starts when the so-called elite of the society object to his intimate description of love life of Shiva and Parvati in the epic poem and ask Kalidas to change or delete the so-called objectionable portrayal.
Kalidas, takes this as an assault on his creative freedom and refuses to bear the indignity of censorship. He chooses to leave his work incomplete and forego the patronage of Chandra Gupta’s court and leaves Ujjaini.
Directed by Neha Lakhotra, today’s production of play, with its classical setting in terms of dialogues, costumes and sets, can be termed as an ambitious venture by Rangshala.
Neha Lakhotra as Kalidas’s wife Priyangumanjri and Anoop Goswami as Kalidas were impressive with their diction of Sanskrtized Hindi dialogues and fluent stage movements. Other who also gave good performances included Sonam Sharma as Priyamvada, Naian Bhaghey as Anusuya, Aditya Bhanu as Kirti Bhat, Asish Zadoo as Dharmadhyakhsh, Raj Bhagat as Chandragupta and Ashish Bhat as Soumitra.
The set designed by Shalini Sharma was eye-catching in use of props to create the ambience of a rich household. The costumes design exhibited an ingenious use of modern apparel to generate the feel of period costumes.
Notwithstanding the fumbling, the local flavour in pronunciation of a few actors, the today’s production can be considered as a landmark by amateur actors of Jammu to stage a historic play which has universal relevance.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
