Andekha: A streetplay by RITVIC
If you’ve ever visited AASRA’s Sector 21 workplace (formerly Leprosy Colony) on a Wednesday afternoon, you would probably have witnessed people resting peacefully in their huts, children coming back from school for a short afternoon snooze before their evening shenanigans. But the Wednesday of 13th March 2019 wasn’t like its average Wednesday. You could see people of all ages, from babies of the age of three to old people in their seventies, running to the entrance of the colony. Many men and women of the Naya Bazaar area immediately shut their shops to rush to the colony. People of the nearby apartments and offices flocked to their balconies to catch a glimpse of what was happening. Homemakers hurriedly closed the doors to their houses and gathered to witness something they never had. RITVIC, the cultural club of NIT Rourkela under Manthan, India’s largest street play festival had decided to perform a street play (Nukkad Natak) in AASRA’s sector 21. Here’s how it went down. The evening began with RITVIC members assembling in the colony around 3:30 PM. They then engaged in ‘Crowd Calling’, wherein the members of the RITVIC team went around the Naya Bazaar area, informing everyone in the region, be it a shopkeeper or someone in their house in the nearby locality or a passerby about the street play, in songs sung in Hindi and Odia.
These tunes, further enhanced by the instruments used by the club members attracted hundreds of people from the surroundings. As people flocked to the former Leprosy Colony, RITVIC members started performing their streetplay titled ‘Andekha’. The play had a central character, Pyare who hailed from a lower-middle class family. The play revolved around how after losing his job, his addiction to alcohol, ruined his relations with his friends, wife and kids.
Before, Pyare had a very happy family. Two good kids, a loving wife and supportive friends made his life wholesome. But after losing his job, he took up drinking, which caused him to abuse his wife and everything just fell apart around him. After a brief period of denial, realization dawned. Unable to take in what he had done, Pyare decided to end his life.
Then, members of the club went on to tell people some facts about alcohol consumption and addiction in an attempt to educate the awe-struck audience about the ill effects of alcohol. The play was an educative one, meant to inform everyone about how substance abuse is bad. It was very well received by the onlookers, who gasped every time something drastic happened in the play, laughed whenever something funny happened and listened quietly as each member of the club spoke.
Here’s to hoping that the street play encourages people to take healthy decisions and live wholesome lives free of addiction. After all, that is what both of our organizations stand for, to change lives for the better. Aasra’s workplace is glad to have acted host to NITR’s ‘Naatya mandali RITVIC’.
-By Nikhil Vobbilisetty
These tunes, further enhanced by the instruments used by the club members attracted hundreds of people from the surroundings. As people flocked to the former Leprosy Colony, RITVIC members started performing their streetplay titled ‘Andekha’. The play had a central character, Pyare who hailed from a lower-middle class family. The play revolved around how after losing his job, his addiction to alcohol, ruined his relations with his friends, wife and kids.
Before, Pyare had a very happy family. Two good kids, a loving wife and supportive friends made his life wholesome. But after losing his job, he took up drinking, which caused him to abuse his wife and everything just fell apart around him. After a brief period of denial, realization dawned. Unable to take in what he had done, Pyare decided to end his life.
Then, members of the club went on to tell people some facts about alcohol consumption and addiction in an attempt to educate the awe-struck audience about the ill effects of alcohol. The play was an educative one, meant to inform everyone about how substance abuse is bad. It was very well received by the onlookers, who gasped every time something drastic happened in the play, laughed whenever something funny happened and listened quietly as each member of the club spoke.
Here’s to hoping that the street play encourages people to take healthy decisions and live wholesome lives free of addiction. After all, that is what both of our organizations stand for, to change lives for the better. Aasra’s workplace is glad to have acted host to NITR’s ‘Naatya mandali RITVIC’.
-By Nikhil Vobbilisetty
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