A Chetana Production Novel: Debesh Roy First performed in June 4, 2000, the play has made tremendous impact in Kolkata. The play started running packed houses from the very first show. Till date the number of performances is 125. The play is an adaptation from the Sahitya Akademi winning novel of the same name by Debes Ray. The play is developed through 5 years of extensive research and workshops.
The play is set in the northern parts of West Bengal, by the banks of
river Teesta. At the very beginning, while wading through a river with the local MLA on his shoulders, Bagharu had requested the elected representative to give him a human name. Towards the end, ten years after the talk with the MLA, Bagharu is left with just a monosyllabic utterance, a word that he employs as a fixed reply to all questions: No. No, he isn’t anything, he isn’t Rajbonshi, he isn’t English, he isn’t of any party, and he has no festoons or flags. He can only narrate what he ‘isn’t’; for, besides being a permanent lackey he is also a perpetual lack. His presence is constructed by innumerable absences, silences which can neither be mapped nor measured. At a time when the entire world is undergoing rapid changes, it seems only Bagharu is holding forth: trapped in a dead past, he remains where he always was. It’s as though Bagharu is the last specimen of some prehistoric human collectivity; having outlived his own time he lives simultaneously in two time zones; though emplaced in the present, he has no dealings with it. No matter how momentous the contemporary upheavals are, nothing affects , nothing touches or moves him. Yet, there isn’t a single incident that occurs on the banks of Teesta which does not inevitably draw him in; be it Operation Barga, the flooded waters, a procession demanding Kamtapur or Teesta barrage, he is to be found everywhere. Though he subscribes to no faith, has no affiliation of sorts, he still reaches the nerve centres of all conflicts without fail. And thus, he creates ruptures, blanks that can not be filled or shored up. Himself a gap he produces gaps, punch-marks which smudge up neat pictures. Just as Bagharu escapes all strategies of containment, he does not let situations to ripe or come to their appointed ends. Precisely because he can not be fitted anywhere his silent presence cuts into pieces all connecting threads, keeps in abeyance all possible resolutions. Bagharu is negation personified. And this ‘negative essence’ ceaselessly intervenes, interrupts steady flows, and makes messy all a-priori designs. The society and the state keep him outside of history and for the same reason he remains irrepressible, he ‘re-turns’ again and again to point towards the unrealized potentials of history, towards open- ends…….. The performance is approximately 2hrs and 50mins in length, including
one interval of 10 Director's Note It is a difficult task to make theatre out of novel. Especially if the novel in question happens to be Teesta Paarer Brittanto – one that adds a fresh horizon to the very history of the genre, creates a new paradigm of narration. I do often jog my memory to recover that singular instant when I discovered moments of theatre in that immense novel, despite the fact it is really not that necessary to find it. What is necessary is to find out whether the profound questions about life, sociological quests and philosophy that the novel carries so richly within its discursive fold, has been even partially touched upon by the theatre. Of course, the audience will view it as any other play, but doubts persist. If the production can express merely some sparks of thought from the infinite contemplative universe in which the narrator in the novel immerses us, then we will have succeeded. In the language of our theatre, we have tried to hold on to the problematic of which Bagharu is the epicenter. However much may the forces of history and the state try to push him to the margins, Bagharu perpetually arrives at the center, rocking the concrete foundations of the official narrative. But Teesta Paarer Brittanto is not just the story of Bagharu’s. It is an account of the way of life of an entire people. I have had to wage many battles with myself in trying to present that milieu, that tremendous turmoil in a community’s life, the uncertain currents of Teesta in the vocabulary of the stage. When I first started drafting the play, I had to think out a makeshift model of the stage, a formative sketch of the chain of events and movements of the actors. The elaboration of the play gradually took place from those nascent, disordered and fragmentary impressions. Of course, one has had to cover a long distance since to reach this present production. But I have been enriched with a radically new sense of theatre by the experiences undergone at every stage in the genesis of this play. In the course of our labours, all of us were touched by the realisation that the theatrical methods that we have been using all these years would not work for this particular production. It demanded different conceptualisation, physicality and language. All that was in the novel itself, I have only extracted it, and tried to transform it into a vision. I have tried to remain completely faithful to the novel while adapting it for the stage. Bagharu was the biggest obstacle in the task of visualising. As long as one cannot see Bagharu in flesh and blood, it is pointless to proceed with this play. At last I saw Shankar Debnath during one of my regular visits to the Chetana acting class. Shankar had shaved his head for some reason that day. It was then that I had my first glimpse of Bagharu. From that day onwards, the production became a realistic proposition for me. Hiron Mitra came in at another level of visualisation. Much like the Teesta in flood, he somehow, almost unknowingly, before I could even realise it, entered our midst with his unbridled torrent of ideas. Hiran Mitra, the man and the artist, excited our entire team with his zest for life. His art is not overtly apparent anywhere, yet it is undeniably expressed at every nook and cranny of the stage. Debojyoti’s modern intellection has added a new register to the music of this play. I realised how Dipak Mukhyopadhyay had been quietly working on his scheme to illuminate things, attending the rehearsals day after day, during the first lit up practice run. It seems as if all of them were indispensable for this production. It would be presumptuous for me to say anything about Debesh Roy, yet I must acknowledge that without his experience and his advice, there would have been many omissions in this production. Above all, I should mention the actors and actresses of this play. Their energy and excitement repeatedly made me confront new and difficult challenges. Through relentless labour, covered with dirt and sweat, they have, with their bodies, begot silt islands on the stage, been adrift in the waters of the flood. Sometimes they have held still like trees, sometimes with the raw ecstasy of the Teesta in flood, they have given flesh and blood to my thoughts. After writing the play, my mind was filled with doubts about who to involve in the production, and how. An urgent desire to improve theatrical skills lead to starting theatre classes. For one year, I worked uninterruptedly with a group of ten to twelve young men and women. It was during this period that Teestaparer Brittanto was being manifest in a visual language. Now I understand, without that labour, at least this production would not have been possible. Finally, just as Debesh Roy writes in his note of dedication to Netai Sarkar, Akuluddin, Jamuna Uraoni and Rabanchandra Roy, at the beginning of the novel – “ They will never read this story, but will live life after life on the banks of the Teesta” – one can say that the future will tell which people and how many will see this play, but we will, all our lives, bear the memory of this creation in our bodies. Excerpts from the reviews of Teesta Paarer Brittanto “A saga of the Teesta talks of a system that enslaves people and
is one of the most remarkable plays produced in a long time”. "Teesta Paarer Brittanta is a must-see. Even with a 30-member cast,
everyone performs well, exuding a rare sense of team-work.” "Titas Ekti Nadir Naam -Adaita Mallabarman’s novel to Utpal
Dutt’s theatre , Ritwik Ghatak’s film – three autonomous,
extraordinary creations. Suman’s Teesta Paarer Brittanto will remain
as an instance like that”. “Just think, isn’t the intellectuals of modern India is not
asking the same question (which the play examines)? Isn’t Medha
Patekar is speaking alike? “A new achievement of Bengali theatre in the threshold of a new
century”. “Suman has broken the syllabus nurtured by the status quo with
his skills and the unbridled passion of youth”. "It is from such a long experience of treading the paths of Bengali
stage that I can say that I haven’t had too many chances to see
such an intelligent, hard worked and mass oriented theatre production
like Teesta Paarer Brittanto”. “A play of extreme satisfaction and great realization. ……
the play doesn’t stop within the banks of Teesta, but in deep ambiguity
reflects the remorseful efforts in extension of civilization and points
to the hollowness of development in the countries of the third world”. "Watching the play, I realized that this is not just seeing visuals
or hearing sounds, but immersing oneself in a relentless flow of life".
“Under the direction of Suman Mukhopadhyay, Chetana’s Teesta
Paarer Brittanta is an unprecendented instance of a conscious effort of
deconstruction(of the novel) on Bengali stage. ……For the first
time a theatre director has interrogated a novel”. “Extraordinary! This play is an endless pathway”. “To draw out the essence from a novel of such epic dimensions and
express it in the language of theatre, it’s unimaginable!” Debesh has shown that the Rajbhansis of North Bengal is also a part of
the Bengali civilization. “It’s extraordinary that how Bagharu has been illustrated
on the stage.” “Bagharu’s characteristic – which negates everything
has been brought on stage extraordinarily by Suman”. “It is an extraordinary play". Short history of Chetana ? Chetana is founded in 1973 by the noted playwright, actor and director Arun Mukherjee. ? Chetana means Consciousness. ? Chetana has produced 18 full-length plays and 10 short plays in its journey of 30 years. ? Among the important plays produced by Chetana , Mareech Sangbad(1973) and Jagannath(1977) has been performed for 700 and 575 times respectively and are still in the repertoire. ? Chetana has performed in all the districts of West Bengal and in almost
all the major cities of India.
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