“Purani Haveli” is an allegorical play that deals with important issues in a metaphoric way
GREAT POTENTIAL Reoti Saran Sharma’s “Purani Haveli” is replete with possibilities.
Writer Reoti Saran Sharma is multi-dimensional. He has written over 150 radio plays, 11 full-length stage plays, a number of TV serials and plays, besides a novel and some short stories. My first introduction to him was through some of his radio plays broadcast from Delhi more than 63 years ago, when I used to act frequently in plays produced by Lahore Radio Station. I was very impressed by Reoti’s simple Urdu and the plot of some of his plays. I still vaguely remem
ber a play about a train accident, particularly its sound effects. The other day I asked Reoti if he remembered the play. “Yes; I do. It was ‘Ek Lamhe Pahle’ and was built around a train accident,” he said.
It is unfortunate that Reoti stopped writing radio plays when he set up his theatre group Kala Sadhna Mandir in 1961 and completely changed over to Hindi.
A few days back, after a long gap, Reoti’s new play “Purani Haveli” was staged at Shri Ram Centre in New Delhi. But as it turned out, it was not really new.
I am told that in 1994 Doordarshan commissioned it and it went on at 10:30 p.m. I am afraid I do not know the date but I do know it was on air again this April on DD Bharati.
In between Reoti had re-written the script as a stage play of about two and a half hours. The play, I am told, was sent to about four to five directors and finally Ravi Taneja, a well-known theatre director who has directed more than 20 very successful plays like “Bhajno”, “Amanat Ki Lathi” , “Konark”, “Kal College Band Rahega” and “Half Way House”, agreed to direct the play on the condition that he would drastically edit it to about one-and-a-half hours. The playwright agreed.
“Purani Haveli”, is an allegorical play built around Satish Kumar and Lala Shidayal’s families who didn’t even know each other. Satish Kumar is an industrialist. One night he sees his grandfather’s spirit or atma, which tells him that he belonged to a family of Patanjalis. They were astrologers of the Moghul Court, who were very rich, and owned a huge haveli with a temple of their family goddess. Later, when the Patanjalis did not help the British, the
ir haveli and jagirs were taken away and given to Shivdayal’s ancestors who were loyal to the British. The new owners destroyed the old haveli along with the temple and built a new one. The spirit asks Satish to take the haveli back from Shivdayal, demolish it alongside the temple and re-build the ancestral haveli and the temple to give “mukti” to his soul.
Satish’s wife, Geeta, and their son try to convince him that there is no such thing as ghosts or spirits and he should forget about buying that haveli; instead he should buy the factory from Shivdayal’s son so that their son can start his own business. But Satish is not convinced. Satish’s grandfather’s atma again goads him to take revenge and at one stage invokes the Kaal Devi to appear in Satish’s dreams and ask him either to kill Shivdayal or destroy the haveli.
Satish begins to plan his assignment and asks some groups to blast the haveli. As it happens, Shivdayal’s son Vinay dies in the explosions. The story ends here with the message that we should forget the past and look to the future.
As mentioned earlier, “Purani Haveli” is allegorical; and watching the play our thoughts go back to what happened to Babri Masjid.
Thanks to drastic editing, in-depth rehearsals and Ravi Taneja’s production design, along with R.K. Dhingra’s overall lighting and his creative use of the smoke gun in the supernatural scenes, “Purani Haveli” has been saved from disaster and is now a play with immense possibilities.
The cast, with the exception of Pooja Tiwari in Geeta’s role, Jitender Barsimal as Satish Kumar and Dhirendra Gupta as Shivdayal, is rather weak, but with some more rehearsals and some changes in the cast, the play can be kept alive for future shows.
ROMESH CHANDER
Printer friendly
page Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
