Shadow Correspondent
Jammu, Jan 30 :
9th Natrang Theatre Festival concluded here today with the presentation of Munshi Prem chand’s play ‘Sadgati’ under the direction of Neeraj Kant. Natrang has been organising a four day theatre festival since May, 2018 to commemorate the 35 years of Natrang and during previous nine months, Natrang has successfully organised 36 different plays which is a record in itself.
The play ‘Sadgati presents a heart wrenching story of one ‘Dukhia’ who leaves for village priest’s house, denying eating anything before he returns with the priest to solemnise the engagement of his daughter, ‘Dhania’. ‘Dukhia’ cuts grass in a field to take it as an offering for the village priest. While working under the harsh sun he starts feeling dizzy and fatigued, but his willpower keeps him rolling. Citing the importance of reaching priests house in time he even refuses to take brew, offered by his wife, ‘Jhuria’.
Sitting in his own vanity, ‘Pandit Ji’ orders him to clean the floor of his house and hands him over a gigantic list of heavy work, which ends in a back breaking task of cutting a mammoth log of wood into fine slivers with an axe. While performing all this, fatigued Dukhia collapses on the ground and takes his last breath. The story further unfolds, how the village priest’s family plots to bury his dead body just to save themselves from the allegations that they were responsible for Dukhia’s death. The Play leaves no stone unturned in making audience understand what is ‘Sadgati’ Natrang’s young actors who performed in the play included Brijesh Avtar Sharma, Manoj Kumar Lalotra, Ajay Kumar Lalotra, Meenakshi Bhagat, Vrinda Sharma, Mannat Soni, Aarti Bhagat, Kananpreet Kour, Sushant Singh Charak, Priyanka Pandita and Shivam Singh. Lights were operated by Neeraj Kant whereas the sound was rendered by Sameena Kousar who also presented the show before the audience and the show was coordinated by Mohd. Yaseen.
