The inner conscious of an individual and the situations it creates in life was seen in a Hindi play Sultan.
The play was staged at Shaheed Bhawan here on Sunday. Directed by a noted theatre artist Chandrahas Tiwari the play was splendidly performed by the Rising Society of Art and Culture (Risac) Bhopal. The play is originally written in Marathi language by a renowned and distinguished playwright of Marathi theatres Mahesh Elkunchwar. The play is translated in Hindi by Vasant Dev and is adopted from the Marathi play with the same name.
The story is about how the individual is captured and controlled by his inner and deep thoughts. As the coin has two sides so as the human beings and this was wonderfully depicted through the play Sultan. A strong script and the mature treatment to the characters by the artists made the presentation on stage a wonderful experience for the audience to watch.
The story revolves around a rich man Raj Shekhar, who after facing a lot of struggle in life is now a renowned business man of his town. The other characters like his girl friend Julie, a doctor and a priest Swamiji showcase Raj Shekhar’s lifestyle to the audiences. As Raj is a rich business tycoon, all the other people around him are there in his life just to grab money from him. Even his love Julie is also present in his life for money. The doctor prescribed him morphine to which Raj becomes an addict.
Further the priest Swamiji wanted to open an ashram for which he befriends with Raj. Thinking about all the people in his life and their cruel and selfish intensions Raj somehow gives rise to Sultan, his inner self. Sultan is wonderfully depicted with a human body and a face of a tiger that is symbolic to the animal that resides within a human being. The situation takes a crucial turn and Sultan gives over dose of morphine to all the characters that leads them to death even Raj.
As the audience find themselves in the whirl of suspense and thrill for one hour they realize that all that happened to the characters was nothing but an illusion. The climax of the play left the audiences mesmerized and enthralled. It was a treat for the theatre-goers to watch such an act for the first time on stage.