You Will Come Back, Bapu! a Hindi play left the audience enthralled at the Adi Vidrohi Drama Festival held at Ravindra Bhavan Auditorium here on Thursday.
Focusing on mass awareness, the Adi Vidrohi drama fest is all about the plays and stage dramas written for the freedom revolt, so as was the play You Will Come Back, Bapu!
Written by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, the play is directed by Mohammad Sayeed Alam. The play that makes it different from other plays is that it is the solo performance and the whole story is acted and narrated by a single artist. The wonderful performance was given by the young artist of Pierrot’s Troupe, New Delhi Ahmed Omer.
The director of the play said, “It was really difficult to carve a play out of this story. Other than holding a great significance of Bapu in it, huge contribution is given by the strong script by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas and the rest support is given by the young artist Ahmed.” Elaborating further, he said, “As this is the opening show of the play, this was the suitable time to stage it. Moreover, we will try to stage it in future as well.”
The story of the play revolves around a young boy Fazal Ali who is introduced on stage in writing something. Such opening scene made the audience ponder as what will happen nextIJ As he began narrating about the play, it is revealed that he is writing a letter to Mahatma Gandhi.
Soon it is also disclosed that his friends Gopal, Seema, Mohan, Ali, Zainab have asked Fazal to write a letter to Bapu. The reason behind writing a letter to him is that all the kids think that the mystery behind Mahtma Gandhi’s death is that the fighting between the kids. The innocent thought of the kids, made Fazal write the letter. As Fazal is also a young boy, he writes the letter with drastic grammatical mistakes adding a comic situation in the play.
His friends further asked him to mention in the letter that they all have thrown their toy guns in the river and so ask Bapu to come back to the nation.
The solo act also highlights the contribution of Mahatma Gandhi in the revolt. The act was much appreciated by the audience. Simple lighting and set also added zest in the performance.