By ARUN PRATAP SINGH
DEHRADUN, 10 Feb: It was the turn of Theatre Group Prachynat from Dhaka to stage their play at the Haridwar Bypass Road Auditorium of the State Culture Department as part of the ongoing Bharat Rang Mahostav, which is underway at several places in the country these days. The theatre festival is hosted by the National School of Drama.
For so many people, life begins with such a huge struggle that they don’t even dare to dream big. However, destiny remains so cruel to them that even their small dreams remain unfulfilled.
Tragedy of Polashbari, a play in Bengali language from Bangladesh, staged here today is a story of poor persons who never dared to dream big but a tragedy strikes and even their small dreams are shattered. In fact, Tragedy of Polashbari is a play that is based on a real life tragedy that struck on 11 April, 2015, when a 9 storey building of a factory collapsed and turned into dust. This rubble became the grave of a large number of workers who were killed due to the building collapse. And the affected families were never compensated satisfactorily. Very soon, another modern building was erected on the same site, on the graves of the dead, and the factory was running again within a short span of time. All the deaths were soon forgotten and never became a subject of news in the media or politics.
The play is a very emotional rendition of the unfulfilled dreams of those who suffered in the tragedy and how the small dreams of the poor, simple and innocent people are easily ignored and forgotten by those who could have lent a helping hand to the affected families.
The play has been written and directed by Azad Abul Kalam a Mass Communications and Journalism Post Graduate from Dhaka University. He has several very popular plays to his credit. He has also staged plays in UK, Japan and Denmark on behalf of his theatre group Prachyanat.
The cast includes Parvin Sultana Koli, Parvin Paru, Shahana Sumi, Mohammed Rafiq, Proddut Kumar Ghosh, Rifat Ahmed, Shahriyar, Sudip Biswas, Rana Jewel and Gopi Devnath. Music was composed by Neel Kamrul while sets and lights were managed by Abul Hashnat and Bhuiyan Ripon.