Stories of everyday life

In Surendra Sharma’s adaptation of “Maila Aanchal”, the oppressed don’t easily submit to exploiters

AROUSING SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS Artistes enacting a scene from the play

Seasoned director Surendra Sharma’s latest venture “Maila Aanchal”, presented by Rang Saptak, Delhi was staged at Bharat Rang Mahotsav sometime back, is yet another creditable achievement of the director known for giving fictional work a dramatic shape. Based on Phanishwar Nath Renu’s Hindi novel “Maila Aanchal” written in 1954, the dramatic presentation resonates with everyday lives of characters, their superstitions, class conflicts and social milieu that form their social consciousness.

The play opens with the news brought to the villagers by a high official that a hospital will open in the village and the official appeals to the villagers to cooperate in the construction of the hospital building. The news evokes mixed response. The village poor celebrate it, enthusiastically contributing in the construction of the building but the village priest warns that the opening of the hospital will bring calamities to the villagers who turn a deaf ear. Soon a compounder arrives followed by a qualified doctor who has volunteered to serve the villagers deprived of the facilities of modern treatment. Moved by the plight of villagers and their social backwardness, the doctor also works as a social reformer.

Marriage woes

Here in this landscape, we meet Tehsildar who is hand in glove with the land owing class to perpetuate exploitation of the poor farmers. Though in a commanding position, the Tehsildar is a worried man as he is unable to get his young daughter Kamli married. Some marriage proposals have terminated in tragic circumstances. Steeped in superstition, no young man dared to come forward to ask for her hand in marriage. Hopeless as she is, she suffers from epilepsy. Once her parents discover her in an epileptic fit, they call the newly arrived doctor who discovers that she is feigning unconsciousness. He gets ready to inject her, flaunting the syringe with a needle and terrified she gets up. There is another story that depicts the activities of a Math, a religious establishment, headed by a blind Mahant with two attendants – one male and another female – who serve him. The Math has an important place in the lives of the villagers. Though everybody knows that the Mahant sexually exploits the female attendant, people consider it the duty of the female attendant to serve him because she is a Daasin, a slave. One day the Mahant dies starting a fierce struggle to occupy the chair with criminals arriving to claim the ownership.

In the large cast the most apt performer seems to be Chandra Bisht as Laxmi Daasin of the Math.Manisha Chauhan (Kamli), Kanish Kumar Singh (Tehsildar) and Dev (Mahant) bring their parts alive, imparting strong motives to make their actions convincing.