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Ardhgrameshwar: A Modern Garhwali Drama Taking Contemporary issues

          

(Review of a Modern Garhwali Drama ‘Ardhgrameshwar ‘ (1976) written by Rajendra Dhashmana and Directed by Mitra Nand Kukreti )

                                           Bhishma Kukreti

                    Rajendra Dhashmana is first Garhwali drama playwright changing the old drama format and brought the new sense and new format for Garhwali drama art. Same way Mitra Nand Kukreti brought newness in the field of Garhwali stage play direction or in the field of Garhwali drama world. Rajendra Dhashmana as a playwright and Mitra Nand Kukreti as a director of Garhwali stage play world are complimentary to each other. Rajendra Dhashmana took initiative in bringing modernity in Garhwali drama and Mitra Nand brought freshness and new imagination in directing ‘Ardhgrameshwar ‘a Garhwali stage play. If Rajendra Dhashmana brought freshness through new subjects and writing in the modern Garhwali stage plays, Mitra Nand Kukreti brought the new aspects in production, placing characters dressing sense, entry of characters, dialogue deliveries, aspects of body languages of performing characters, dialogue deliveries, affectivity of distance between two or more performing characters, movement of performing characters, exact movement of performing characters, uses of lighting and shadow in the Garhwali drama world through ‘Ardhgrameshwar’ a Garhwali stage play.

                Before writing Ardhgrameshwar ‘a Garhwali stage play, Rajendra Dhashmana wrote a drama ‘Jankjod’ in Garhwali in 1975. While Mitra Nand Kukreti had good experience of dramatization of Hindi and English stage plays beside his famous column on analysis of ‘Drama’ of Delhi’ for a daily newspaper. Jagar a Garhwali drama organization of Delhi stagedArdhgrameshwar ‘a Garhwali stage play in Delhi in 1976.

   Ardhgrameshwar ‘a Garhwali stage play is about the migrated Garhwalis suggesting the means of progress in rural Garhwal. For suggestion about progress of village migrated Garhwalis attend the conference and their suggestions are as per their profession. For example a poet suggests poetry is the means of progress, a clerk suggest for type righter as means of progress, a professor suggests speeches as means of progress of village. At the end women folks from village and cities bring the real solutions.

     There are twenty main characters in the drama and more than ten other assisting characters. There are folk songs and folk rites (mantra0 in the drama. The dialogues fit the characters or characters of the drama. The dialogues are witty and do not spare anybody.

              Realism is the key of Ardhgrameshwar ‘a Garhwali stage play. Ardhgrameshwar ‘a Garhwali stage play got appreciation for its writing and presentation from critics of non –Garhwalis too. The well known critics of Delhi drama world positioned Rajendra Dhashmana and Mitra Nand Kukreti as modern most dramatists of India. There were more than ten shows of Ardhgrameshwar ‘a Garhwali stage play all over India. Rajendra Dhashmana  is successful in showing the static or inert mental position of migrated Garhwalis due to their day to their professional works and becoming myopic about other issues such as thinking about their native land.

   As Europe remembers Ibsen, Strindberg, Pirandello and Beckett for bring contemporariness in European modern dramas the Indians appreciate the work of Rajendra Dhashmana and Mitra Nand Kukreti for bringing contemporariness, present-day issues, and present topic in the modern Garhwali drama.  

        Indians will always remember Rajendra Dhashmana’s Ardhgrameshwar ‘for bringing contemporariness, present social issues in the dramas of language as Garhwali.

References:

A-Curtsey to Parashar Gaur for supplying manuscript of Ardhgrameshwar ‘a Garhwali stage play

1-Dr Anil Dabral, Garhwali Gady Parampara (Garhwali Dramas from beginning till 1990)

2-Abodh Bandhu Bahuguna, Gad Myateki Ganga (Garhwali dramas from beginning till 1975)

3-Dr Sudharani, Garhwal ka  Rangmanch (Garhwali Dramas  from beginning till 1985)

4-Drama special issue of Chitthi Patri magazine (Garhwali Dramas and plays staged in Delhi, Karachi, Mumbai, Dehradun and other places)

5- Dr Hari Datt Bhatt Shailesh, Garhwali Natak evam Rangmanch: Ek Vihngam Avlokan (Garhwali Drams and theatres from beginning till 1985)

6-Dr Bhakt Darshan: Barrister Mukandi Lal Srmriti Granth (Garhwali dramatists or theatres playwrights till 1985

7-Dr Nand Kishor Dhoundiyal, Garhwal ki Divangat Vibhutiyan (pp108-116, about contribution of Bhagwati Prasad Panthri for developing Garhwali drama)

8- Notes on Dramas of Uttarakhand by Parashar Gaur –MeraPahad site