Noted music and theatre resource person Gursharan Singh is in city to direct ‘Siddhartha’, a play which is an adaptation of Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse’s novel.
‘Siddhartha’ involving 45 students for the 13th Founder’s Day celebration of Dikshant International School, Zirakpur is scheduled for 6th December at Indradhanush Auditorium, Sector-5, Panchkula.
He is the former Director -Music and Theatre Department- Doon School, Dehradun. Gursharan Singh has scored music for television and radio and has produced choir and orchestra ensembles for the Doon School, Dehradun, Mayo College Girls , Mayoor School Ajmer and many others including Dikshant International School. The play is based on the novel of the same name by the German author Hermann Hesse. The novel was published in 1922. In 1946 Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
Singh informed, the play is set in the time of the advent of Gautama Buddha. Its central theme is the human predicament- the endless cycle of suffering, disease and death. The Buddha having given up his family and his kingdom announces that desire is the cause of suffering and attachment to worldly things and relationships is what gives rise to suffering!
Siddhartha, the son of a Brahman, well versed in traditional religious practices finds a lack of spiritual impetus in the life he is destined to lead and renounces his home along with a faithful friend -Govinda and begins his own search for the truth about the reality of life.
They travel to meet the Buddha where Govinda takes refuge at the feet of the great master, but Siddhartha continues alone, arguing that enlightenment has to be achieved by one’s own efforts and dependence on a teacher or Guru is a double-edged sword causing dependency and lack of initiative while providing direction and inspiration.
After a long period during which he becomes the disciple of a courtesan and the associate of a business tycoon, Siddhartha finds peace in the company of an old ferryman by the side of a river, to whose voice he learns to listen and in whose waves he sees the reflection of the world of events He begins to perceive that life is a continuum in totality and cannot be divided in to the past, present and future.