Play 'Bandish 20-20000Hz' presents a musical odyssey in Jaipur

On the fourth day of the ongoing performing arts festival – ‘

Navras 2019

’ at

Jawahar Kala Kendra

in Jaipur, play ‘

Bandish 20-20000Hz

’ directed by

Purva Naresh

was staged. The music for the play was by renowned singer Shubha Mudgal. The play is set on the eve of Independence in a green room in a small town.

Nautanki singer Champa Bai and frail thumri and ghazal exponent Beni Bai are being honoured at a function organised to mark 71 years of India’s independence. They are paralleled by two heartthrobs of the nation, reality TV contest winning singing sensation Kabir and playback singing star Moushumi, who are all set to perform at the event. As the plot ensues, one after the other crisis emerges in the play. First, Kabir gets banned due to an anti-national badge after he performed in a neighbouring country. Then, Moushumi refuses to sing when a power cut prevents the use of in-ear monitors. And finally, Beni Bai the last option also refuses to perform.

The play is an exploration of the environment surrounding an artist, the restrictions, bans and how an artist negotiated these to finally go on to the stage and perform. ‘Bandish’ literally means ‘restrictions’ and the suffix ‘20-20000Hz’ is the frequency range the human ear can hear. But how much is heard depends upon the sounds in the surrounding environment.

The cast of the play included – Danish Hussain (Munnu), Anubha Fatehpuria (Champa Bai), Nivedita Bhargava (Beni Bai), Harsh Khurana (Babu), Akhil Pratap Gautam (Kabir), Ipshita Chakraborty (Moshumi) and Shweta Sharma and Shahnawaz Aalam (radio announcer).