Monday,11,2019
Published on July 15th, 2006 in The Telegraph India.
A wintry night in north Calcutta. Pankaj and Bimal are on night-guard duty, armed with sticks and torches, knitted monkey cap and sleeveless sweater in place. Only a while ago a corpse has been carried away, the chants of cremation ground tantrics and barking dogs build up a grim foreboding. Even the two unemployed youths for whom 'nothing new ever happens' sense it.
Then high up on the walls amidst suitable gushes of smoke, the ghost appears. But that is where conventions end. This is not the guard platform of the castle of Elsinore, but Garanhata, and the ghost instead of being the wronged King of Denmark is Sadhan Hemlat's father in Bratya Basu's Hemlat: The Prince of Garanhata.
So the ghost appears to the accompaniment of red smoke and a remix of the music ofTridev. Instead of the silent armour-clad Shakespearean Ghost who shakes his head, spreads his arms and beckons, we have a dhoti-clad ghost who quotes dialogues from films of Sunny Deol, Jackie Shroff, Naseeruddin Shah, Manoj Vajpayee, Mithun Chakraborty, et all. 'Raj kar raha hai haiwan,' he cries, demanding revenge.
'I have always striven to raise a contemporary voice, people don't like that much. They prefer to talk of the past or even when they do talk of the present it usually is of distant places like USA or Europe. This might make me a loner but I can't keep quiet. If I get the itch, comment I will. That too in non-political, aesthetic statements,' said Bratya Basu who has to his credit a host of controversial and successful plays like Ashaleen, Aranyadeb, Sahar Yaar, Page 4, Chatush Kon, Mukhomukhi Boshibar, Winkle Twinkle and Babli.
'Few people in India realise the many possibilities of doing Shakespeare. I felt that if people can accept the films Maqbool and Omkara (based on Macbeth and Othello) it is time I did Hemlat,' said Bratya, during a midnight rehearsal at the Academy of fine Arts.
The language of Hemlat is of today and the milieu is the one we live in, complete with promoters, politicians, and owners of 'Xerox centres' and STD booths.
They have been rehearsing for a month now, nearly six hours a day, with many sessions stretching from 11 pm to 5 am. 'It's easier for the actors, most of who are tied up in different commitments during the day, and at night the mobiles are off,' smiles Bratya.
The group has a point to prove. Hemlat: The Prince of Garanhata is the first play to be produced by Swapnasuchana, a theatre group that acknowledges how the ticket buyer's money is 'their investment' and 'they should go away feeling that they have profited'.
Producer Bijoy Mukherjee, who has long been associated with theatre group Barasat Anushilani, says he has learnt the hard way that the amateurish style in which groups present theatre nowadays cannot survive.
With a director, script and team of actors and technicians selected purely on the basis of merit and commitment, they stand a better chance of coming up with entertaining yet thought-provoking productions, which also cover a good part of the costs. Members of the present team have decided to waive remuneration for the first six shows, which the producer says will cost around Rs 6 lakh.
Bratya's team of actors hails from various groups of Calcutta and Uluberia like Lokokrishti, Beadon Street Shuvam and Barasat Anushilani. The names of characters echo those of the original like Shefalia for Ophelia, Kadu for Claudius, Paul for Polonius, Lachchu for Laertes.
But there is nothing to trivialise the situation, and the passion comes through with as much intensity from these home-grown sources. According to the writer-director, the name Garanhata was not only chosen because 'it goes well with Hemlat but because I wanted to show the paradox of a locale that encompasses the Nimtala burning ghat, the red-light area as well as the Jorasanko Thakur Bari'.
The play that Bratya claims is an authentic representation of the fascinating labyrinth of time will be staged at the Academy of Fine Arts, on July 16, 23 and 30 and August 6, at 10 am.