A three-day drama festival was organised by Chayanika, a socio-cultural group of Dibrugarh, from August 30 to September 2 last, in memory of Natasuryya Phani Sarma, one of modern Assam’s outstanding theatre personalities. This annual event, held for the last eighteen years without fail, normally begins on July 30 every year, but was put off this year by a month due to the State’s municipal elections being held exactly on that day. Altogether, three plays were presented, one each in Bengali, Assamese and Hindi.

The fest opened with a Bengali play titled Swapna Swadesh, conceived by the trio comprising of Bibhash Roy Choudhury, Bipratip Dey and SS Chatterjee, and directed by Ashim Das. The drama depicts the transformation of a modern-day careerist girl who loves surfing the internet, hates reading history and can’t understand why some people die fighting the imperialist forces. However, after being persuaded by her grandfather, Diya starts surfing the net, this time to know about her country’s freedom fighters, and beginning with Mangal Pandey, the first mutineer, others including Rani Lakshmibai, Gandhiji, Netaji and the young Kshudiram appear on the screen of her computer. All this brings about a change in Diya, making her feel proud to be an Indian and inspiring her to dedicate herself to the cause of the nation. This 50-minute play was characterised by the employment of a simple stage set consisting of a couple of wheeled stands or platforms dragged in and out for the main players to perform from, while the girl, sitting on one side of the stage, was viewing on her computer screen the same characters and their actions. Bhumisuta Das as Diya and Dipanwita Banik Das in the dual role of Maa and Lakshmibai were quite appealing in their performance. Niladri Kanjilal also did well in the roles of Baba and Mangal Pandey. Mukunda Chakrabarty as Gandhi, Shyamal Biswas as Netaji, and Manoj Das as Kshudirarm apparently tried their best to bring these great figures of history back to life on the stage, but they were far from being able to live them. Others in the cast were Anil Mandal (Policeman), Angsuman Sarkar (Matal) and Debu Basu (Dadu). Those working backstage in charge of light, music, stage-sets and so on were able to give the impression of sincere team work.

The second day’s presentation was a play called Sewjiya Gaari, staged by a group of children. Written by Pankajyoti Bhuyan and directed by Simanta Phukan, the enactment was reported to be a whopping success as an entertainment piece spiced with some food for thought. The play depicts how a group of children from diverse families living in a highrise apartment building miss space and everything natural and how their psyche is impacted by this cruel experience. As this reviewer could not make it that evening, he refrains from saying anything more except expressing his feeling that he really missed the show.

The third and final evening saw a play in Hindi, named Hawalat, scripted by Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena and designed and directed by Praveen Shekhar. With just four characters in the cast — three youths and a policeman — the play dramatises a situation in which these four characters play out the plight of the common man and the lower middle class in the present system. The young trio, educated but in extreme penury, starve and shiver in the cold, and when the constable, finding them hanging about in the dark, takes them to be ruffians, the youths pretend to be so in the hope that the policeman would put them in the lockup, where they would have something to eat and some sheets to protect themselves from the cold. The constable blindfolds them and makes them go round and round in circles, giving them the false impression that they are being taken to the lockup. When the young fellows, on removing the blindfolds, find themselves in the same place, they do not react any differently, thus showing that the displacement effect is nil. The acuteness of the situation leaves the flabbergasted constable in a state of utter shock, making him intensely aware that his condition, too, is not any different from theirs. The play, particularly reminiscent of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and the theatre of the absurd generally, was a telling dramatisation of a situation. While all the four artistes who took part in the play – Sachin Chandra as the constable, Neeraj Upadhyay, Ashotosh Pratap Singh and Satish Tiwari as the young trio – did remarkably well, those working backstage, too, appeared to be giving the needed support. The entertainment effect was reinforced by the carefully orchestrated interspersing of verses by Kedarnath Agarwal.

Chayanika has not just followed the run-of the-mill track. It has ventured into areas where many fear to tread these days, like organising a lecture programme for the last six years. While the earlier talks were delivered by eminent theatre personalities and academicians, this year’s was delivered by Dr Pradipjyoti Mahanta, Professor in Tezpur University’s Department of Cultural Studies and a renowned scholar and exponent of Satriya culture and literature, on the topic ‘Ankiya Bhaona in the light of folk theatre and classical Sanskrit drama’. This impressively delivered and well-attended talk was appreciated by all those who attended it. Another fact, for the record, is that Chayanika has been bringing out a souvenir these past eighteen years without a break, edited by Bhupen Goswami, in which a host of writers, including eminent ones, have contributed articles on drama, theatre and related matters. A careful selection of the articles published in the souvenir’s eighteen issues would undoubtedly make a good book on the subject. Another feather Chayanika has added to its cap is the organising of a play-writing competition on all-Assam basis, with three prizes of Rs 3,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 sponsored by the family of Achyut Chutia, artiste and active member of Chayanika, who left us very prematurely. Altogether, sixteen manuscripts were received this year, and the prize-winners are Bhuban Chandra Gogoi from Tezpur (play: Sirajuddin Ahmed), Ramen Sarma from Teok ( play: Bishwas) and Bishnu Gohain from Dibrugarh (play: Buruj), thus negating the mistaken belief that play-writing at present here in our State is at a low ebb.

The founding and active members of Chayanika — most of them presently in their forties or early fifties — were eighteen years younger when the organisation was born. They are no less indefatigable today and are strongly committed as ever to drama and theatre as a means of entertainment and a medium of communication with the people, despite the fact that they are all busy either in professions or in business for a living. We wish them all well and look forward to the years ahead when they would be premiering more and more plays.

Dr Pona Mahanta