Day 3: Children enthrall audience with their acting skills

Nagpur: Six plays were showcased on the third day of the 15th Maharashtra State Children’s Drama Competition at Scientific Hall, on Wednesday. The competition is being organized by the state’s directorate of cultural affairs in which 26 schools and NGOs will participate till it comes to an end on Friday.

The first play was ‘Sakalicha Ghanta’ by Rukhmai Seva Mandal followed by ‘Raghav’ by Tilak Nagar Mahila Mandal, ‘Joyanache Rang’ by Rashtrabhasha Parivar Samajik Sanskrutik Sanstha, ‘Buddhachi Goshta’ by Blind Relief Association, ‘Goodbye Dr Aswal Kaka’ by Mundle Education Trust and ‘Hum Honge Kamyab’ by Lal Bahadur Shastri High School.

‘Buddhachi Goshta’ was an adaptation of the works of noted author Vishnu Khandekar. The story showed that each human has a part of Gautam Buddha right from when they are born but society erodes that part from a person.

The story focuses on a mother and son from a wealthy family which is shown doing social work. However, the mother covertly discriminates poor and underprivileged people and expects her son to follow the same path. But the son is portrayed to be compassionate when he learns on Buddha Jayanti that his aunt is suffering from leprosy and wants to help her and her daughters in any manner he can. His mother opposes it, but the son manages to open his mother’s eyes and asks her to be sensitive to his aunt’s conditions and help her. The play was written by Dhananjay Sardeshpande and directed by Megha Padhye.

The next play ‘Hum Honge Kamyab’ talks about education for children. According to play’s writer Krishna Ramekar, despite the government’s policy which guarantees free and compulsory education for children yet a lot of children can be seen out of schools. The story focuses on Kanha, a boy who aspires to study in schools but had to resort to rag picking because of abject poverty. Even so he saves whatever money he can and enrols himself in a corporation school in Marathi medium.