The jam-packed Antarang Hall of Bharat Bhavan and the huge crowd of the theatre enthusiasts outside the door marked the third day of the 8th Theatre Olympics. Here on Friday, Hindi play ‘Prem Ki Bhoot Katha’ was staged at Antarang Hall, Bharat Bhavan.
Directed by a true theatre enthusiast Dinesh Khanna, the play was beautifully staged by the artists of Pehchan Cine Samvad, New Delhi. The play is based on the novel by Vibhuti Narain Rai with the same name.
Notably, Rai read Ruskin Bonds Mussouri and landour: Days of Wine and Roses, which becomes a gate to a surreal world of murder, mystery and enigma. The story unfolds in an enigmatic way where the writer journalist is on a look out for evidences which will prove the existence of ghosts. He befriends some of them and then the story follows next adventures of his life.
In 1909 two events take place in Mussouri- a birth and a death. After the journalist sets out on an adventure where he claims to befriend some ghosts, he happens to meet the supernatural who have their own unresolved mysteries. His explorations carry him to places like the Naini Jail, Mussouri and Dehradun, where he finds the revelation of an ancient, amorous, anagogic story beyond human imagination.
“A ghost story, or a love story of ghosts, or an unresolved mystery of the supernaturalIJ It was a challenge for me to find the right kind of actors for this genre and met actors filled with queries. Innumerable questions rose in my mind. But when I turned to my own people, my own set designers and light people, peace prevailed. My attempt to enliven the still has inspired within me a cosmic need to live in a parallel world of imagination,” said Khanna.The perfect light design, the correct timing of artists’ dialogue delivery, the charismatic entire sequence of magical world was beyond imagination. It was a extravaganza!