Prisoners steal the show

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, JULY 25. Inmates of the Central Prison on Tuesday won the admiration of the audience at the Chowdaiah Memorial Hall here for their artistic ability.

The Home Minister, Mr. Mallikarjun Kharge, who rarely smiles, was seen laughing while watching a comic scene in the play Jandi Seshanayaka, a translation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The performance of the prisoners impressed the theatre critics too. Interspersed with folk art forms, the drama held everyone spellbound.

The drama was the culmination of a 45-day art workshop conducted by "Sankalpa," a Mysore-based group dedicated to the promotion of art.

For once, speeches by the guests took the backseat. The Governor, Ms. Rama Devi, who inaugurated the show by beating a drum, did not make a speech.

The programme began with an invocation by a group of jail inmates.

Another attraction was the presentation of Kamsale -- a folk art -- by the inmates of the new Parappana Agrahara prison.

The Minister for Kannada and Culture, Ms. Rani Satish, was so impressed that she announced that her department would provide the instruments needed for pursuing the art in prisons.

Mr. Kharge hoped that the exhibition of artistic abilities of the jail inmates would erase the wrong notions in the public mind about them.

He congratulated Mr. L.Revannasiddaiah, Director-General of Police (Prisons), for the conduct of the workshop.

Mr. Kharge distributed notebooks, prepared by the jail inmates, to poor children. Ms. Rani Satish released the souvenir.

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