"Ganga Snan" fails to enthuse
DIWAN SINGH BAJELI
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Mohammed Waseem's "Ganga Snan" could not capture the nuances of Bhojpuri music.
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A scene from "Ganga Snan"
Bhikhari Thakur was immensely popular as a ballad singer in Bihar and the Bhojpuri-speaking region of Uttar Pradesh in the `20s of this past century. His themes, ranging from patriotism to social issues, became a powerful vehicle to awaken anti-colonial feelings among the masses during the British Raj.
His Bedesia and soul-stirring music continue to captivate the audience as well as to inspire contemporary theatre practitioners like Satish Anand to carry forward his legacy in the changed socio-economic milieu.
Alienation effect
Delhi-based young director Mohammad Waseem has a special fascination for the ballads of Bhikhari Thakur and discovers in his works a contemporary appeal. Waseem believes that in Bhikhari's works what is most striking is the prevalence of the alienation effect and hence is India's Bertolt Brecht who is attributed to pioneering the concept of epic theatre that deals with alienation effect in detail.
Waseem, the founder-director of Bela Theatre, has earlier produced Bhikhari Thakur's "Bhai-Virodh". He has also produced Bhikhari's ballad "Ganga Snan" for his group this past week at LTG auditorium.
Though Waseem has directed several plays of different genre with considerable success, "Ganga Snan" appeared to be inadequately rehearsed and his large cast (non-Bhojpuri speaking) tends to be incapable of capturing the finer nuances of Bhojpuri music.
These factors seem responsible for the missing magic of Bhikhari that mesmerised the huge audience assembled in the open air to hear Bhikhari.
Bela Theatre's earlier production of Bhikhari's "Bhai-Virodh" was directed by Chaman Gandhi, a guest director from Bihar.
Human destiny
The original ballad of "Ganga Snan" is short. It is adapted by Subodh Kumar Niraj who has created a few more characters to meet the requirement of the stage.
Bhikhari Thakur is introduced as a character in the play who opens the production with a couplet, expressing the irony of human destiny. The storyline in the original is simple. The central theme of the play is the utter failure of a son to fulfil his filial duties, which breaks the heart of the audience.
At the behest of his wife, the son inflicts cruelties on his mother and even forces her to give him a piggyback to go to the Ganga to get rid of all kinds of sins.
The catastrophe comes in the form of the death of the old mother which brings about a change of heart of the son and his wife. This can be described as moral realism in tune with Munshi Prem Chand's short stories.
Inhumanity of man
The idea of the backdrop of "Ganga Snan" is to use to highlight the element of satire to expose the inhumanity of man against man.
But this satirical element does not come to the fore in a powerful manner. However, Waseem's production unfolds itself without any interruption.
Manish Thakur as Malechhu who inflicts cruelties and indignities of his mother and Jhampa Dutta as the wicked daughter-in-law manage to impart inhuman traits to their characters. They appear to be sincere in their repentance when they find the body of the old woman.
But this realisation comes too late. Madhumita Barik creates the portrait of the silently suffering mother with suitable pathos.
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