The fourth and last day of the 26th edition of the festival witnessed a light and sound oriented play ‘Mangal se Mahatma’. Directed by Sunil Chipde and presented by Agraj Natya Dal, Bilaspur, this play was conceptualised by Dr. Rajesh Tandon.
The story begins with the sepoy mutiny of 1857, with Mangal Pandey at the helm. The struggle by the sepoys in the army kicked off a long serving movement which led to the awakening of various facets of Indian freedom struggle. The rise of Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi, and the eventual awakening in various parts of British India lead to a more organised freedom movement. The play takes us through a journey of these icons which addressed particular parts of the society and contributed in their own ways. It also takes us through violent events across the country including Jalianwala Bagh and crushing of the Namak Satyagrah. The play also contextualises various movements which happened in Chhattisgarh during that time period.
Interestingly, the play presents a beginner’s guide to how the freedom struggle panned out and how common people became part of it in large numbers. It presents a visual reference to various events one may have read in the history books. The emergence of Mahatma Gandhi, Motilal Nehru, Lokmanya Tilak, Subhash Chandra Bose, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Bhagat Singh and so many legends leads to a culmination of British Raj leaving India for good, but with the wound of partition that hurts Mahatma Gandhi so much that he finds himself isolated, tending to the wounds of the fallen and injured in Noakhali riots.
The performance was a well coordinated one and a half hour of beautiful imagery with a team of 30 artistes, well coordinated dances and powerful compositions of songs. It invokes a sense of pride, but maybe due to limitations of time, many lesser known events were left out. Bhim Rao Ambedkar’s role in the shaping of the modern India, as we know it, was missing too, which makes the performance somewhat incomplete. The play, while focusing on the common people who joined the movement with all they had, comes out beautifully, but does get shadowed by the chronology of events and becomes a bit too textbookish. At the same time, it is a much needed effort which brings back the focus on the independence which we have taken too much for granted, for far too long.
