Dramatic Moments

This is Ganpati time. After many years, i had an opportunity to be involved in drama during Ganesh festival. Thanks to rejuvinated spirit in my society, which celebrated public festival after 6 yrs of its inception. Drama with kids aged 6-8 was another challenge. So had to write script and work on practice sessions with those kids. Kids were so enthused abt it as they used to assemble for 4-5 mins earlier to 930 practice time and used to ring bell at sharp 9 30. They performed well including my daughter who later attempted to write her own drama. Everybody enjoyed it.

Drama is so fun. Mostly i have done one act plays expect for few productions at KGP. It all started at my high school, where kale sir (Shri Pramod kale, who wrote and directed kahe kabira and many more performances, and an active sudarshan rangmanch member) spotted talent in me. I was a non entity till say 5-6th. Jaagar Prasang Natya was a real best opportunity where we had to do extenpore drama. Thats a different challenge. We did some good plays for school gathering written by Kale sir/Tapasvi sir. I remember performing in front of Nilu phule and sriram lagoo. Then came a group play called Kavle where we won a competition. It was a ballet. We had great time practising it. We also participated in rajya Natya in mumbai.
The concept of writing script (hand written) from the Book. Remembering dialogues. Reactions, timing , positioning etc. Endless practices, tea shops, snacks, late night cycling, opportunity to interact with opposite gender, rangeet talim, final show, some blunders and timely recoveries, prompting. the process is real fun. The next day after performance was sad, as we felt loss of purpose of life.

Then came my opportunity to have tryst with purshottam karandak in college. It was different experience all together. though we did not do well as it was well foreseen.(It was sacrificial entry as other play from college was the main entry). Those practices in college campus, selection process (I had a friend whom people used to call as my godfather. he provided helpful jack.) Those snacks at 3 am. We had passouts and alumnii helping us. A great learning curve.

In kharagpur, with my background, i took interest in Hindi Drama. I had a senior from Pune who was also active in drama circles. He was genious. We did few sanjay pawar translations. In my first year (ours was the first batch to have separate fresher's hostel). I directed a hindi drama. I got best direction award. Since then directing took frontseat than acting. Spring fest was great event . we had plays from calcutta colleges. I volunteered as organizer there. For all 4 years i was involved in that. I became drama secretary and organized 3 competitions. Those organizational skill, right from booking auditorium, getting makeupman, budgeting, slotting, property really helped in professional life. I had an intersting senior called Rehan Khan from Lucknow. He ate, drank and breathed drama. We had very little female population. So all girls had opportunity to participate in drama at some event or other. Thus we were the most envied population on campus. We also performed at Ghatshila (near jamshedpur). we did picnics for drama teams. We did freshers play : Moruchi maushi hindi version. People had gala time. I performed in bengali translated plays by badal sarkar. I translated elkunchwar play Holi, directed and acted in it. we won a prize. Tried to understand bengali drama as well. Badal sircar, Mohan rakesh, tendulkar form trinity. In my final year, I was drama society governor.
After that saw many plays but never had that chance to perform again throughout my professional life. Attempted (successfully) to write a play. Also tried staging it but for lack of team. But its never late. Will surely try to be involved in stage, and also new media. lets hope this tryst during ganesha starts that track.

Coming back to where we started, very early in my life, we used to have ganpati festival at my wada. We did some kids plays. We used to watch seniors perform. It used to be an event which we used to look forward to from months together. We also performed for Dynandeep a TV program on social causes. That was a different era.

Time has flown by. Life has come whole circle. So let me live some more dramatic moments ahead. Thats a prayer to Ganesha, master of 64 arts.....