And life goes on...
ROMESH CHANDER
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"Zindagi Retire Nahin Hoti" is about fragile relationships between the young and the old.
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ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS A scene from "Zindagi Retire Nahin Hoti".
The Nautanki Samaroh organised by Sahitya Kala Parishad, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh Sanskritik Kendra, Allahabad, was indeed a welcome new cultural event at Dilli Haat.
To honour, G.S. Channi, a well-known thespian based in Chandigarh, and director of Centre for Education Voluntary Action (CEVA), the festival opened with CEVA Drama Repertory Company's latest presentation "Zindagi Retire Nahin Hoti", even if the presentation was not in the nautanki style. It was indeed a well deserved gesture by Sahitya Kala Parishad to honour someone who is not only a theatre man involved with different aspects of theatre but also a filmmaker who has participated and won awards in many film festivals and also written and directed many TV serials particularly with Kashmir as the theme.
Channi was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 1999. And now to "Zindagi Retire Nahin Hoti". The play is directed by Channi and his wife Harleen who conceived the story. The play is about relationships between the elderly, the young and not so elderly. As the director says, "Retirement is an important point in the lives of most people. It has been marked as a happening in a person's life that can accelerate the onset of most health problems that relate to old age. However, life does not end at retirement. Our problems do not start at old age. The seeds were sown much earlier when the banal nine-to-five routine, the security blanket of a position, a designation and a regular salary obliterate the thought of tomorrow".
Common story
The play is a common story of most middle class families. The youth cannot perceive the experience of the sense of dispossession and increasing feeling of helplessness of the old that in a nutshell the play underlines and takes a humorous look at the issue . The play is performed in the interactive theatre mode and it works out in the stylised tradition of Brechtian genre juxtaposing two realities, one which pictures the intransigence of the experienced men and women and the other which mirrors the apathetic and callous attitude of the younger lot. The play doesn't merely underline a problem but also provides an insight into the issue.
Some in the cast tell us anecdotes from real life. We see senior citizens travelling down the memory lane - sometimes blaming their kin for having alienated their affections, sometimes demanding respect from them. And sometimes struggling to resolve the inner conflict which stems from their own inflated expectations. The dialogues reflect the poignancy of situations in which the modern day children and parents often find themselves trapped. The playwright takes care that it does not turn into a blame game between the two generations. On the other hand the lines help to resolve the social crisis.
The characters throughout are in direct conversation with the audience, mirroring bitter facts of life for them and hitting them where it hurts the most. The dialogues lead to a decisive conclusion which has the elder and the young resolving to solve the problem together. Like most of CEVA's plays "Zindagi Retire Nahin Hoti" is cast in the mould of a community play while at times using the street theatre technique that gives ample opportunities to most of the cast to be in the limelight at some time or the other. Long time back this critic had an opportunity of seeing one of Channi's outstanding productions "Akh Di Delheez" based on contemporary poetry during the days of unrest in Punjab in 1990. The play, we are told, ran for 400 shows. Surely with some editing the play would still be as powerful as it was in 1990.
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