Street is their stage

MYSORE: If plays are considered the best modes of communication, the stage is a perfect platform for artistes to entertain people and spread awareness. But for this duo which has chosen the mode of theatre to propagate messages of peace and communal harmony, every unexpected place is a stage. Street theatre has been a passion for artistes Uday Kumar and Ramanand for over 28 years.
Gejje Hejje, a theatre troupe, was formulated in 1982 to popularize street plays. Mainly formed with an idea to promote street theatre for it requires minimum props and expenses, yet passes on valuable messages to thousands, the artistes took it up as a career and ever since, have managed to stage as many as 7,000 street plays across Karnataka and outside so far.
Says Uday Kumar: "Forming Gejje Hejje was a dream come true for both me and Ramanand. We started the team mainly to promote street plays, especially among rural people and to encourage young and budding artistes. We especially chose street plays for we felt they make an easy mode of reaching out to people, as one need not bother about making time to visit theatres. Things seemed extremely difficult initially as we hardly had any money to invest on the shows. However, such was our enthusiasm that though we would have no money to travel, we would walk several kms to reach different villages and stage the street plays."
At present, there are over 20 members in the troupe. Yet the specialty is that, every play they stage will have only two artistes.
The plays staged by Gejje Hejje members are theme-based and mostly focus on current affairs and social issues, claims Uday Kumar. "We prepare the scripts of almost all the plays on our own. Our scripts mostly focus on topics such as effects of pollution, waste disposal, problems faced by farmers, drinking water supply and problems faced by alcoholics."
And the audience response is instant. They relate themselves so well with the characters portrayed in our shows that there have been times when some people have even turned emotional and cried before us, Uday Kumar asserts and adds, "Once when we staged a play related to farmers problems, one of the farmers who watched the play came to us and said, `wish the officials concerned and politicians too understood our problems as you artistes do, but sadly they don't'. They even thanked us for hosting a play related to their issue," he said.
Some other time, a drunkard who watched a street play related to alcoholics, said he would give up drinking for he realized what pain his wife and children are going through.
"We are happy and feel contented when people relate themselves to what we portray and appreciate our efforts. It is what we wished for when we decided to form Gejje Hejje and now we feel we are successful. We will continue with efforts and hope people will continue valuing our efforts the same way," says the artiste.