Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
Bridge party
|
The theatre festival, Admit One, had some rather enthusiastic participation from Lahore
|
Photo: Murali Kumar K.
ACTING UP The UET theatre group saw few differences between the neighbouring countries
It is generally agreed that art requires sacrifice. One wonders, however, if there are many amateur artistes who would cross international borders and travel thousands of kilometres without any real guarantee of remuneration.
But that’s exactly what 15 students of University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore did: travel across the Wagah border and on to Delhi from Amritsar and finally a two-and-a-half day journey down to Bangalore.
All just to participate in “Admit One”, the annual theatre festival hosted by the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) at Alliance Francaise last week. “The journey here was just amazing,” said Abdul Quddoos, one of the group members. “There is just so much scenic beauty. And the people have been so friendly in every respect and that’s what we enjoyed the most.”
The students were first encouraged to make the journey by a couple of college contingents going to Lahore from India during the summer. “When we saw what a great, festive atmosphere it was, we were inspired. That was what pulled us here.
We’ve been doing theatre for four years now, and this was a chance to give people outside an idea of the kind of theatre that goes on in Pakistan.
And it was also a chance to see the sort of theatre that gets done here,” said Kashaf, another member.
Although the UET Dramatics Society was in touch with the organisers from NLSIU since September, their trip to Bangalore was almost entirely an eleventh minute affair. “When we were first contacted, half of us didn’t even have passports. Throughout, the plan was very on and off. We finally got confirmation that we were coming only last Friday,” he added.
The journey across this country threw up a fair share of troubles too. The train out from Delhi, for instance, had only six confirmed tickets and the rest were waitlisted. “We had thought that we could at least have a seat on the train with the waitlisted tickets and were shocked when someone told us in the station that we wouldn’t even have seats,” explains Kashaf. And there was the inevitable con: “When we got to Delhi, an agent offered to show us around Delhi and charged us Rs. 3,000 for it. Later we found out that we could have got the whole thing for only Rs. 1,200.”
Made it finally
Fortunately for the audience at Admit One, the students did finally make it to the city. After all, the UET team added wonderfully to a competition that must be commended for the range of plays and genres it comprised. Performing on the last day, UET staged two plays. The first, a short farce titled “Zindagi, Maut aur Maqsad”, took the audience through a hilarious love triangle between the three title characters life, death and purpose. The farce, however, was just the appetiser for the main event, “Death Beat”.
The finale of the theatre festival, this mime was completely devoid on content, but swept the crowd off its collective feet with its incredible presentation. Done mostly using black light (UV light), the mime recreated some of the most intense special effects moments of “The Matrix” in a completely realistic manner. This was done by having a team of performers dressed in black, so that they are invisible in the black light.
This team of performers then supports and carries the primary actors dressed in brightly visible clothing so that they look as if they are performing impossible stunts such as flying across the stage and so on.
With what seemed like hours of practice, spot-on coordination and refreshingly simple innovations that exploited the black lighting to the fullest, UET finished to a standing ovation from the crowd.
With their play done and the atmosphere soaked in, one had to ask what differences the students saw between their country and this one.
“Well,” said Mobeen, one of the more vocal members of the group, “everything here is exactly like back home: the people, everything. The only thing different is that the sign boards outside shops here are in Hindi, while they are in Urdu back home.” Certainly, judging from the students’ view of circumstances in their country, not much seems to be different from students here.
“The Emergency doesn’t really affect us that much,” said Kashaf, expressing some of the disconnect from politics that does seem common to many urban youth in our country too.
RAKESH MEHAR
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
|
