Marking the second day of three day theatre fest Munshi Premchand's story 'Godaan' was staged. The play was staged at Shaheed Bhavan here on Friday.
The play was directed by Dinesh Nair. It was performed by the artists of Rang Madhyam theatre troupe.
The story revolves around many characters representing the various sections of Indian community. The peasant Hori is shown as a typical poor peasant who is the victim of circumstances and possess all the deficiencies of common man but despite all this, he stands by his honesty, duties and judgement when time requires. He is shown dead partially satisfied and partially unsatisfied.
The story starts from a point where Hori has a deep desire of having a cow as other poor peasants. He purchased a cow from Bhola, a cowherd by taking a loan. Hori tried to cheat his brothers. This in turn led to a fight between his wife and his younger brother, Heera’s wife.
Jealous of Hori, his younger brother Heera poisoned the cow and ran away fearing the police action. When the police came inquiring the death of the cow, Hori took a loan and paid the bribe to the police and was able to clear off his younger brother’s name. Jhunia, the daughter of Bhola, was a widow and eloped with Gobar. Because of the fear of the action from villagers Gobar also ran away to the town.
Hori again is compelled to take a loan and pay the penalty. Hori is in huge debt from local money lenders and eventually married off his daughter Rupa for mere 200 rupees to save his ancestral land from being auctioned.
But his determination to pay those 200 rupees and to have a cow to provide milk to his grandson, leads to Hori's death because of excessive work. When he is about to die, his wife Dhania took out all the money she had and made Hori pay the debt on behalf of Godaan. This eventually fulfils the traditional dream.