Jammu, Sept13: In its endeavour to provide platform and space to the budding artists of Jammu and Kashmir, Nutan Prayas Manch today performed a well renowned play Pishach Yatra at the Scottish Hall of Alexander Memorial School in an intimate expression of theatre and performances among a select audience.
Written by Vikram Sharma and directed by Anuroop Pathania , ‘Pishach Yatra’ in a merger Hindustani dialect , is about Kaya, a young female from low caste who marries an upper caste young man and becomes a widow on the very first night of her marriage.
During the next 13 days of mourning and rituals, she is made to cut her hair and is sexually exploited by village headmen and others. About to commit suicide, she with help of a cripple flees the village and land up in a whorehouse.
There she meets her first client, a teacher who later becomes her mentor and helps her to become educated. So much so she qualifies the All India Administrative Services competition and is selected to become deputy commissioner in her native area only.
The play ends with Kaya offering anything to her mentor as guru-dakhshina. The teacher proposes to marry her and thus absolves her from ghosts of past life.
The script of the play, while raising many questions about the male dominated conventions, gives expressions to the inner yearnings and psychological reflections of female gender who, given opportunity, can open up new frontiers in life.
Kaavya Kapoor , the journalist with The Fourth One India media house as Kaya was at her histrionic best, while Anuroop Pathania as eunuch Talkhan-the master of the whore house, who seeing an opportunity for absolution of Kaya allows her to flee away with the ‘teacher’-was impressive in the way he maintained the dance-like rhythmic stance in all shades of emotion.
Harshita Khajuria as Kaya’s mother-in-law Kalavati also stole the limelight through her variegated performance while Shreya Raza as Bindri produced a stellar role enacted as a woman worn-torn in the custom.
Gaurav Gupta as Dharamdas and Aryan Dogra as Vishnu Prasad and later his ghost, gave notable performances. Other members of the cast who chipped in with fine performances included Sunil as Bhudrva and Shivam , Heera and Sachin as village goons.
The sets in the unique space of Scottish Hall of Alexander Memorial Hall and lighting shades were designed by Sanam Sudan while background haunting music was prepared by Aman Sangral. Make Up was executively done by Sahil.
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