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REMEMBERING THE LEGENDARY PREMCHAND
On the occasion of 83rd death anniversary of legendary writer Munshi Premchand, Srijan Shakti Welfare Society organised a two-day theatre festival at Rai Umanath Bali Auditorium in the city. Munshi Premchand is known for Hindi-Urdu literary works like ‘Godan’, ‘Gaban’, ‘Shatranj ke Khiladi’, ‘Nirmala’ and others.
A play based on one of Premchand’s short story ‘Sadgati’ was translated and directed by Meena Sondhi and organised by Manav Seva Yog Sansthan from Bareilly.
The story of the play revolved around the issue of caste system in India.
When a poor village cobbler, Dukhi, goes to a village Brahmin to get a date for his daughter’s engagement fixed, the latter in turn asks for free labour followed by serious turn of events.
Artistes who were part of the play included Azam Khan, Meena Sondhi, Mayank Shukla, Seema Aseem, Faizan Khan, Santosh Upadhyay. This was followed by the release of book -Samwad by KK Agrawal based on four stories of Munshi Premchand. The second day saw another play ‘Motey Ram ka Satyagrah’ translated by Habib Tanveer and Safdar Hashmi, directed by Dr Umendra Kumar and presented by Anukriti Rang Mandal from Kanpur.
The play was set in British era and focussed on flaws of bureaucracy.
Dr Ram Shankar played the character of magistrate, Rajeev Tewari was Motey Ram Shastri and other artistes were Aakriti Mishra, Raghuvendra Prajapati and more . Chief guest for event was UP’s law minister Brajesh Pathak who along with other special guests including Mahendra Modi, Tarun,
Nidhi Verma and anchor of the day Seema Modi lighted the ceremonial lamp.