When I shifted to Chandigarh successful 1984, I went to a World Theatre Day lecture by a distinguished theatre critic, who, portion delivering a insubstantial connected Indian culture, referred to Punjabi civilization arsenic the ‘Balle Balle’ culture, with a dismissive motion of his hand. At that time, I made airy of that jibe, but successful retrospect, it truly bothered me.
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Punjabi civilization lends itself precise easy to a myth-making manufacture that dressed its world successful a mode that the ‘copy’ became much existent than the ‘original’. As a transcript is ever a distorted representation of the real, a fewer exaggerated, larger-than-life qualities started getting associated with Punjabi theatre. As a theatre director, definite questions acrophobic me. First and foremost, the contented of language.
Punjabi, arsenic spoken successful Hindi films, is simply a gruff patois of pidgin Punjabi interspersed with juicy aphorisms. This became the gauge successful the mode the connection was perceived. My caput resonated with verses from Guru Granth Sahib and songs from ‘Heer Ranjha’, ‘Sohni Mahiwal’ and ‘Sassi Punnu’ successful Gurmukhi. How and erstwhile did this connection and civilization spell done specified an representation distortion?
It was lone successful the 20th period that play came to beryllium written for the intent of performance. Before that, what existed was an oral contented of qissas (love stories), vars (heroic tales) and jangnamas (battle narratives). These oral traditions were afloat of verve, robust imagery and passionate poesy and were sung and enacted successful the expansive contented of the strolling minstrels and balladeers.
Paradoxically, the genesis of modern Punjabi theatre started with an Irish woman, Norah Richards, who came to India successful 1911 with her hubby Philip Ernest, an Irish Unitarian minister. He had travel to Lahore to thatch English astatine Dyal Singh College. As an amateur actress, she had been associated with the Irish National Theatre successful Dublin. In Lahore, she directed ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, and its overwhelming occurrence encouraged her to nonstop galore much Shakespearean productions with her students.
This acquisition became a catalyst successful stimulating Punjabi students to delve into their ain myths and societal issues, and garner from it an idiom that was local, vernacular and regional. Norah had fixed the students a caller slogan — ‘Punjabi plays by Punjabi authors astir Punjab for a Punjabi audience’.
In 1912, she initiated a contention of one-act plays, which gave an impetus to section writers to constitute plays that dealt with issues that were a portion of their life. From this competition, 2 important plays emerged: ‘Dulhan’ (‘The Bride’) by Ishwar Chander Nanda (1892-1965) and ‘Dina Marriage Procession’ by Rajendra Lal Sahni. These 2 plays, written successful the realistic mode, had an evangelical zeal, which whitethorn look outdated and irrelevant today, but were important milestones successful the hunt for modern contented successful theatre performances
In a wholly antithetic registry was the enactment of Sheila Bhatia (1916-2009). Her lyrical and operatic benignant musicals created a buzz that had the assemblage thronging to spot her work. ‘Heer Ranjha’ (1956), a emotion story, and ‘Chann Badlaan Da’ (‘The Moon Behind the Cloud’, 1966) were a medley of Punjabi people and wedding songs.
She besides directed Federico Garcia Lorca’s ‘Blood Wedding’ (‘Tere Mere Lekh’, 1984), Bulle Shah’s ‘Sulagde Darya’ (‘Burning Rivers’, 1987), each done successful an operatic style. Even though her cardinal characters were women, the woman’s dependable did not asseverate itself oregon disturb the duplicate frames of patriarchy and feudalism.
She received sizeable adulation successful Delhi arsenic her theatre resurrected a caller individuality authorities amongst a Punjabi assemblage fractured by its dislocation owed to Partition. She besides stood successful nonstop opposition to the lewd but fashionable ‘Sapru House’ theatre, an unluckily antagonistic stereotype with which the sanction of the auditorium came to beryllium linked. During the 1970s, their benignant of amusement was buffoonery. These coarse and unsubtle productions with salacious titles appealed to the Punjabis who had relocated to Delhi aft Partition.
In contrast, Bhatia offered them a instrumentality to the quality of Punjabi poetry, euphony and the panoramic references to civilization done anecdotal storytelling.
In 1974, the Department of Indian Theatre was established by Balwant Gargi (1916-2003) astatine Panjab University, Chandigarh. Concurrently, the Speech and Drama Department was acceptable up by Surjit Singh Sethi (1928-1995) successful Patiala. These 2 departments helped successful freeing the Punjabi theatre from backwater aesthetics and provincialism arsenic they brought successful their enactment the tone of experimentation and liberalisation.
Gargi’s ‘Lohakut’ (‘The Blacksmith’, 1944) touched upon the taxable of pistillate tendency successful a feudal and patriarchal context. Surjit Singh Sethi’s play ‘King Mirza Te Sapera’ (‘The King Mirza and the Snake Charmer, 1965) showed a fervent hunt for a caller idiom and syntax that could accommodate the changing reality.
Tremors of alteration happened successful 1976, erstwhile successful a daring move, the Department of Culture, Punjab, acceptable up a determination repertory with 30 actors. The brains down this task was a feisty IAS officer, Ravneet Kaur. Without immoderate preconceived template, she managed to make a repertory successful an effort to instrumentality Punjabi theatre into uncharted directions. She was inclined to promote diversity, invigorate theatre’s attack to classics, make conversations with the community, and grow the committedness to the commissioning of caller projects.
Ram Gopal Bajaj, MK Raina and Balraj Pandit, trained astatine the National School of Drama, were invited to nonstop plays for the newly-created company. Before their accomplishments could beryllium recognised oregon the organization individuality emerge, the repertory was dismantled. In fact, it is nary exaggeration to accidental that if the repertory had been allowed to stay, it would person changed the look of theatre successful Punjab. Whatever the matrix of causes, it near down a fig of provocative questions that hovered implicit the theatrical skyline successful Punjab. Within a twelvemonth and a half, the repertory, which had burst similar a constellation onto an arid landscape, died, leaving nary epitaph behind.
The introduction of Gursharan Singh (1929-2011) became 1 of the astir important chapters successful the past of Punjabi theatre. This iconic father-figure with his revolutionary attack to theatre was a fearless activist. His was a theatre connected carts, connected trucks, successful colony squares, nether a tree, connected a thoroughfare corner. It was a theatre of sweat and salt, a theatre of applause, a theatre viewed by thousands of radical sitting nether a blazing prima oregon watching nether the night-light with the benignant of passionateness reserved for spiritual functions oregon colony fairs.
In 1964, helium founded the Natak Kala Kendra successful Amritsar, which has been the nursery for galore Punjabi theatre actors and directors. His thoroughfare theatre activities impacted Punjabi agrarian communities and inspired a procreation of activistic theatre workers, who dispersed the connection of societal alteration and civilian rights to workers and students.
During the tallness of coercion successful Punjab successful the 1980s, helium continued to perform, careless of the changeless threats to his life. His astir notable play was ‘Toya’ (‘Ditch’), a searing diatribe connected man’s capableness to support connected digging his ain ditch. ‘Kursiwala and Manjiwala’ (‘The Chairman and Cotman’) was a governmental battle connected the prevalent dispensation, without euphemism oregon subterfuge. His agitprop theatre exercised a beardown power connected the wide public, who flocked to spot his plays with fervour and passion. He worked nether trying conditions and disregarded comfortableness oregon fiscal remunerations for a origin that helium believed in.
Gursharan Singh, with his bold and evocative polemics, exposed the disruptive forces that were tearing the cloth of Punjab during the tallness of violence. His theatre was a battlefield which near 1 scarred and besides healed. Uncompromising and brave, his theatre was an enactment of protest. On World Theatre Day (March 27), I salute the stalwarts connected whose shoulders we stand. This is conscionable a glimpse of Punjabi theatre, not the full picture.
— The writer is simply a theatre manager based successful Chandigarh
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