Kannada Natya Ranga, an active cultural body of Kannadigas, put up a comedy play at Ravindra Bharati, The play titled Sanmana Sukha was followed by a Bharatanatyam recital by Amulya, a disciple of Geetha Ganeshan.
Sanmana Sukha means the pleasure one begets after being felicitated. This popular comedy, written by M.S. Narasimha Murthy, focuses on how the organisations spring up just to make money by holding these Sanmana Sabhas.
In the play Rajeev and Gopi, specialise in this art of swindling money from the persons who crave for sanmanams. Their ambition is to get into Guinness book of world records. They choose people and venues from star hotels to smaller venues and accordingly charge to felicitate. One such victim is writer Viswanath, who believes he is a great writer, but the editors to whom he sends stories don't think so.
His wife Vishalu constantly complains that her husband is wasting time in pursuing his literary dream. However, a story sent for an International competition gets selected. This makes him proud and thinks that he deserves a felicitation for this achievement.
On knowing that Viswanath won the award Rajanna and Ramananda, workers of a factory propose to felicitate Viswanath at their annual function for which they ask him to procure a shawl and a garland.
His friendly house owner Rama Sastry gives away a shawl he got from a respectable source.
And a flower girl gives him the cheapest garland after a good bargain. When almost everything is ready for the felicitation , politician Pekarappa happens to win a Panchayat election just by a single vote and is brought to the very function to felicitate him. The irony is that the shawl and garland brought by the writer are used to felicitate the politician.
Performances given by B. Madhusudhana Rao as Viswanath, Suma Alse as his wife Ramachandra Alse and Kopreshachar as Rajeev and Gopi respectively, Suchindra and Mallikarjun as the Rajanna and Ramanand, Ramachandra Digi as the house owner were praiseworthy. The role of the politician was played by Ramachandra Rao. Lakahmi Narayan as another politician lived the role. Swapna figured as the flower girl selling garlands. Veteran K. Gundu Rao the architect of this Kannada Natya Ranga directed the show.
The Bharatanatyam show by young artiste Amulya Manja followed the play. She opened with Ganesha Kautvam and followed it with Shiva Sankara Srigiri with an-built theme of Kamadahanam .
The Rama Jaya Rama that was presented later narrated how Viswamitra set out with Rama and Lakshmana to annihilate the demons.
This ended with Sitakalyanam.
