First-ever Play on Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Wins Applause

NEW DELHI:
One of India’s frontline social reformers and freedom fighters got her eventful life essayed on the stage for the first time in history when a play on Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was presented in the national capital more than a quarter century after her death.
The hour-long Hindi drama, under the aegis of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), was a production of Assam’s Seagull Theatre and was led by renowned actress Bhagirathi Bai Kadam—a native of Karnataka, which was Chattopadhyay’s birthplace as well.
Staged in collaboration with India International Centre (IIC) and Delhi Crafts Council, ‘Kamaladevi: Yaadon ki kuch Panne’ thus saw its debut stage, four months after the Guwahati-based theatre group began working on the historical play with a six-member crew.
Based on a Hindi translation of a Kannada play on Chattopadhyay (1903-88) by septuagenarian Vaidehi (Janaki Srinivasa Murthy), Seagull Theatre unveiled its theatrical charm with five actors—three of them women—and a stage manager. Tuning into the Spartan lifestyle of the protagonist who worked for the social uplift of female workers in the field of handicrafts and handlooms, the play largely employed minimalist techniques in terms of background music, lighting and props.
Amid Friday’s gusty winds that seemed to add to the intensity of the depiction of Chattopadhyay’s tumultuous journey, the play at IIC’s open-air venue resorted to a linear narrative enacted in flashback by the central character at her old age. “Initially, there was also this suggestion to present it as a solo. But that, I thought, would drain much of the colour of heroine,” said middle-aged Bhagirathi, who is an alumnus of National School of Drama (NSD) and runs Seagull with her theatre-person husband Baharul Islam in Guwahati since 1990.
A native of Gawadagere village near Hunsur in Mysore district, Bhagirathi, who enacted the lead role, directed the play after re-tuning the original script to the requirements of her production.
The 65-minute play zoomed in at crucial episodes from the life of Padma Vibhushan Chattopadhyay—her childhood exposure in native Mangalore to intellectuals such as Mahadev Govind Ranade and Annie Besant, husband’s death when she was 16 and two years into the marriage, subsequent meeting with artiste-litterateur Harindranath Chattopadhyay who she made her husband, Kamaladevi’s joining Mahatma Gandhi’s Seva Dal, her founding the voluntary organization All Indian Women’s Conference, her team leading the 1930 Salt Satyagraha, and her becoming the first Indian woman to be arrested by the Raj-era police.
Chattopadhyay, who divorced Haridranath on mutual consent in the 1920s, was much later instrumental in setting up the All India Handicrafts Board and NSD. The play concludes with a glimpse at such post-Independence activities of Kamaladevi.
The 1985-founded IGNCA is a premier autonomous institution under the Union Ministry Culture, promoting diverse as well as interdisciplinary programmes of research, publication, training, creative activities and performance in the field of arts and culture.