The deviation from the spirit of 1971 and 1952 has been presented in an experimental production titled Swadeshi Naksha, staged on Wednesday at Dhaka University’s Natmandol. The play was staged by theatre and performance studies department, marking the 94th Dhaka University Day. Directed by a teacher of the department, Rahmat Ali, Swadeshi Naksha incorporates different traditional performing art forms like puthi, kichcha, ghatu and gambhira to narrate the fact that contemporary socio-political milieu has deviated from the spirit of the glorious historical movements like the language movement and war of independence. Two students of the department, Ira Ahmed and Catherine Purification, unveiled the story through narration, with support of a number of students who performed as dohar (back vocalist) and bayen (instrumentalist). The show commenced with the narration of the glorious language movement of 1952 in the traditional puthi style. Subsequently, the narrators presented the sacrifice made by the people during the war of independence through a combination of puthi with kichchha gaan. Issues of the contemporary period like human trafficking were depicted through different light entertainment art forms such as ghatu and gambhira. ‘It is a collective work,’ said Rahmat Ali, ‘I took help of the students to develop the script. Moreover, my colleagues Amit Chowdhury and Saidur Rahman helped me in the directorial composition.’
Earlier, Dhaka university treasurer Kamal Uddin, dean of the faculty of humanities M Akhtaruzzaman, chairman of the department Sudip Chakroborty took part in the discussion presided over by Wahida Mallick, a teacher of the department.
-With New Age input
