The Bhopalites witnessed the struggles of common man’s life here on Wednesday at Antrang Hall, Bharat Bhavan. A Hindi play ‘Chhoti Badi Baatien’ was staged on the third day of 23 Iftekhar Theatre Festival.
Directed by a veteran actor of Bollywood and an eminent theatre artist Rajeev Verma, the play was a compilation of three short stories ‘Pitaji Ki Band Peti’, ‘Ataichi Case’ and ‘Thakurayan’. The play was presented by Rajeev Verma’s theatre group, Bhopal Theatres.
The play began with ‘Pitaji Ki Band Peti’ written by Yogesh Tripathi. Featuring four characters on stage, the play dealt with the curiosities of a person. The curiosity to know the hidden fact, curiosity to reach the conclusion and curiosity to dig out truth in every manner was the essence of this short story.
The story surrounds the life of an old man and his family, where his elder son, daughter-in-law and young son are restless to know what is inside the brief case of their father. All the family members built different opinions about the closed case. Their impatience and the result out of it formed rest of the story.
The second story ‘Ataichi Case’ was a sarcastic comedy which dealt with the similar situation of the first play. The story surrounds a middle class family, which somehow receives an unidentified bag in their house. The family members were curious to know what is inside the bag, besides they also wanted to search the real owner of the bag. The events that occurred during the story created the sarcastic situations in a comic way.
The last story ‘Thakurayan’ is written by Pratibha Sharma. This play narrated the story of a woman whom people knew with the name ‘Thakurayan’. She was short-tempered; she was pretty yet a lady of values and customs. People loved to talk about her. As everybody has a past in life, Thakurayan also dealt with her past that was hidden in herself. What happened to her in the past, formed the rest of the story. This play was basically a journey into a woman’s heart. The audiences enjoyed the set of emotions portrayed on stage fantastically. The artists gave spell-binding performances leaving the audience mesmerized.