"Shahjahan ke Aansoo" staged by Kedar in Patna on 4.10.2018

Contemporary issues in Mughal set-up 

(हिंदी में कथासार के लिए सबसे नीचे दिए चित्र को देखें और नाटक के अन्य चित्रों के लिए नीचे दिए गए लिंक पर क्लिक कीजिए)

"Shahjahan ke Aansu" raises several issues that are relevant today as well. An emperor may face a destiny as miserable as a  wretched helpless man groaning for food and water. And the irony is that all this is meted out to him by his own son. Whereas the son Aurangjeb is as cruel as being a killer of his real brother Murad for the throne the daughter is still showering in all care to her father even in his incarceration. The gender difference and neglect of parent are starkly obvious to the naked eyes of the viewers. The matter does not stops here. The ex-emperor pleads for child education and also talks about good features in opposite religion viz. Hinduism. This one-act play has less to do with the  deeds mentioned in the history rather it digs at the challenges for the future much more assertively. 

The director Vishal Tiwari who also played the lead role of Shahjahan says it was very difficult to keep the audience seated for more than one hour with this extremely serious genre of the play. But the big mass of the audience stuck to their  seat totally stupefied and  keeping mum ball the while. No claps, no cheering up. The pressmen were also seen seated for the whole show which is a rare phenomenon in Patna.

Vishal further says that he had watched this play some eight or nine years ago which was played by some Delhi group and was so impressed that he made up his mind this time to put it on  the stage with his own way of presentation. He thanks Dipti Tripathy the daughter of the playwright Acharya Devendra Nath Sharma for allowing him  to move with the play. 

Manisha Kumari  in the role of Jahan Arrah, Uday Pratap Singh as Asad Khan and Dipak Kumar Verma as Fazil Khan acted well. Vishal Tiwari was acclaimed wholeheartedly by the viewers for the role of Shahjahan who could vent their laudatory noise out only at the end of the play.  Pradip Ganguli as set-designer, Upendra Kumar for make-up, Subhash Kumar for music and Ravi Verma for lights must be talked up. Kiran Singh had designed marvelous costumes befitting to the regal halo of Mogul which were prepared by Saddan and this flow of though into action did wonders for the show.

Next day all the dailies of the city were all praises for the team Kedar and its director along with all the actors. 

Vishal says getting whistles and guffaw is not our  aim. We  aim to change the hearts of the people for the good. 

To take up such an extremely serious genre of play is itself a big  challenge and sailing it over well-turned is like adding a golden feather to your cap. The whole team of Kedar along with its director Vishal and all  the actors deserve unqualified appreciation. 

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Author of the article- Hemant Das 'Him'

Photograph -  Kedar

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