"Gotya ko Bacha Lo" staged by Kala Jagaran on 1.9.2018 in Patna

Bravo! the dejected hungry man died of overeating

"Mai kisi aurat ke sath uski marji ke khilaf jabardasti nahi karta" is a typical example of the  biggest paradox of in this country. Through one's highly crafted manipulations one leaves no way to a virtuous woman  but to offer her body for other's carnal pleasure and then the scoundrel  cheers his conscience up with the hypocritical statement that the woman had come to him by her own sweet will. Damn to this spurious thought process!

Ragho, the son of Gotya lives peacefully in a village Mahua-para along with his parents, wife Bhagmati and children. The whole scene changes when a contractor enters the village and the trees are cut down. Soon the village turns into sort of factory of wooden materials and villagers are reduced to mere labourers in it. Following the well planned strategy the contractor initiates every villager into the habit of drinking and within a few months the whole village is an abode of drunkards. Now the true picture emerges when the contractor stops giving money and asks for the money given in the past as spent by villagers in drinking. Ragho has no money to pay back and so he comes back home without daily remuneration from the contractor. The wife, children and parents have to remain hungry for weeks. Ultimately he leaves the village and goes to Mumbai. 

For months there is no trace of Ragho in the village. All members of the family of Ragho are at the brink of dying of hunger. Then the contractor suggests the Ragho's wife to work in the factory. Gradually she is convinced by the contractor to work in the house of his boss Seth Bastiwala. At first she works in daytime but through some excuses of sickness Seth succeeds her to call at night. Now she is induced into becoming a bed partner with him. Left badly in need of money Bhago accepts all this. After some days her husband Ragho returns home. Then the contractor tells him about the infidelity of his wife. Ragho kills himself and all of the members of the family by poisoning to save the self-esteem. His father Gotya does not take the poisonous food because of cough and is saved.

To save their own face, now the whole administration is attempting to keep Gotya alive but he has stopped taking any food as he is the person who saw all of his family members dying because of hunger. He has no will to live. One civilian officer and two constables are deputed to feed Gotya. After many days Gotya accepts food from the hand of one of the constables. Because he deliberately ate heavy food at once after several weeks of hunger he starts vomiting and ultimately dies. His death is projected by the administration to the media as death by overeating and not by the root cause of hunger.

The script of Salil Sudhakar is full of grief and of course is a protracted one. From beginning to the end, he has successfully kept  the whole play; on serious note. Though some dance sequences have been injected which are really recreational still the gloom and dejection in the play is unbearably painful. He has succeeded in showing the full range of events behind the death of one particular family but every turn in the drama is predictable. The presentation lacked innovation but it sailed through because of high level of acting and direction. At one point of time when Bhagmati was delivering a very serious dialogue the background sound piece was too loud. Gotya, his wife  and contractor acted powerfully. Ragho, Bhagmati, policement, DM etc. did justice with the respective roles. Seth Bastiwala was superb and two little children of Ragho were stunning. The twists of the dancer girls were captivating. Sristi Kumari, Amir Haq, Rakesh Kumar, Sadhna Sinha, Mithilesh Sinha, Sunita Bharti, Aradhya Sinha,Sanjay Sahini, Hiralal Ray, Mani Raj, Sushil Sharma, Neha Kumari, Piyush Kuar were among the part of the cast on-stage. Off-stage were Hiralal Roy (make-up),Rina Kumari (dresses) and Rajkumar Sharma on lights  and they were fine. The motion picture played on the backstage was a good supplement. Suman Kumar directed the play with his usual good skills. 

The show illustrated truly the paradigm of poor's exploitation.

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Review by - Hemant Das 'Him'

Photographs by - Binay Kumar

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Note: This is the primary draft. Correction will be done afterwards.