Ank the winner is...

One has to applaud Dinesh Thakur’s commitment to Hindi theatre, and courage in carrying on against odds like dwindling audiences, changing tastes, fewer dates in auditoriums and shortage of suitable performance spaces. He had kept his theatre group ‘Ank’ going for 26 years, which is not a small feat. ‘Ank’ is one of the longest surviving Hindi theatre groups in Mumbai — outlasting dozens of groups that came in with a bang and fizzled out equally fast. Ank’s anniversary drama festival in October is now an annual ritual, which theatre regulars keep track of. This year, ‘Ank’ is staging stories by well-known Hindi authors — and it is about time some of them got wider exposure — being directed by Devendra Raj Ankur, Director of the National School of Drama. To begin with two stories, Ek Ladki Paanch Diwane by Harishankar Parsai and Mudrika Rahasya by Sharad Joshi form a new production titled Ek Ladki Paanch Diwane. Coming up from ‘Ank’ in November (during the Prithvi Theatre Festival) is Asgar Wajahat’s Partition classic, Jis Lahore Nahin Dekhiya Woh Janmeya Hi Nahin about a Hindu widow living with a Muslim family. Incidentally, a lot of local theatre groups are hard at work to come up with a brand new production for this year’s Prithvi Festival – which is exciting. Ila Arun, for instance, whose group ‘Surnai’ recently held a three-play festival is gung-ho about her new play. Considering she does not do plays as frequently as she wants to, a fresh production from Surnai and director K.K. Raina is always something to look forward to.
l Ayesha Jhulka’s entry into the world of theatre is relatively recent — she did Purush with Nana Patekar about two years ago — but she is already discovering new facets of herself. Last week, she opened her new dance-drama ‘Prakriti’, which is about a girl’s passion for dance. Ayesha is a trained Kathak dancer, and this turned out to be a good opportunity to show off her dancing talent — this production has Kathak pieces composed by the legendary Pandit Birju Maharaj, with music by Ravindra Jain and Madhav Azgaonkar. Ayesha’s film career may not have been a huge success, but she has found her own way to creative satisfaction, which is commendable. Coming soon after the audio-visual cum dance-drama Robi O Radha and a few days before the dance performance Samagam by Hema Malini and her daughters Esha and Ahana, it looks like classical dance is going through a sort of revival on the popular theatre circuit.
l Kuchelagahta, a Malayalam Play written and directed by Dr. Vayala Vasudevan Pillai, Director and Head of Department of School of Drama, Calicut University, and staged by the drama troupe Renghachetana was selected as the only entry from India to the Asian Theatre Festival held in South Korea recently. According to Ramachandran, who very actively promotes Kerala culture in Mumbai, Rengachetana, headed by Dr. Vayala Vasudevan Pillai was founded in 1980 at Trichur by a group of progressive intellectuals and artists, and is doing “yeoman service in the social and cultural fields over the last two decades.�