A short play narrating the tale of a young boy was staged here on Wednesday at Shaheed Bhawan Auditorium.

The Hindi play, ‘Nanda’ is directed by Gagan Shrivastava and scripted by Gagan Nema. The play was presented by the artists of Earth Theatre Group, Bhopal.

The play is about an 18-year-old boy Nanda, who is a nature lover. He is attached to nature so much that it seems that he has been brought up in the lap of nature. He talks to trees, flowers, rivers and waterfalls. He never thinks about his career. He even doesn’t like to go to school and wants to live and play with nature only.

His classmates declare him mad when they find him crazy about nature and never miss the chance to insult him. They never understand his feelings. One day he meets a journalist Roshni. Gradually, she becomes very good friend of Nanda because she respects and understands his feelings. After seeing his great friendship with Roshni, his friends make vulgar comments and also complain to his father.  Nanda is deeply hurt by this.

One day he is on way to his house then his friends tease him. He starts running blindly to escape them and comes under wheels of a truck and dies. After the death of Nanda, Roshni becomes very upset and she starts behaving exactly like him.

The play began with the scene where a narrator comes on stage and gives a brief description of Nanda. He says that Nanda is the representative of nature and he wants that people should also love nature. 

The use of experimental and suggestive sets added more zest in the play. The stage was divided into two parts. On part was the area where Nanda spend the time with nature while his school and home were in the second part. live tree, plants and stone were used as props to make the play more live.

The traditional music giving a touch of pahadi folk music maintained the interest of the audiences at the hall.