Manoj Mitra touches 75 this December with over 100 short and full length plays and 40 scripts for radio and television to his credit. But he is still not mentioned in the same breath as say Girish Karnad, Habib Tanvir or even Sambhu Mitra...but there are some in Kolkata, Mumbai and in Delhi who believe he is one of the most important playwrights of our times.
But what does the man think? Does he himself feel sidelined? Catching up with him at the ongoing Sobar Manoj festival in Kolkata we realize that the unassuming creative artist couldn't care less. He is even a little embarrassed by the festival hullabaloo.
Sundaram, Mitra's theatre group of 55 years, has organized a six-day festival of ten of his plays, which are being staged by various groups in Hindi, Bengali and in the Rajbangsi dialect.
The first attempt of this kind could have been on a bigger scale because Mitra's plays have been produced by countless directors. Habib Tanvir directed NAND RAJA MAST HAI (Mitra's play RAJDARSHAN) in 1984; the same play has been repeatedly staged as KHEL KHILADI KHEL by Shri Ram Centre over the last three years; Rajinder Nath has directed several of his plays including BAGIYA BANCHARAM KI (SAJANO BAGAAN), KISSA HEKIM SAHIB (GALPO HEKIM SAHEB), SAIYAAN BEIMAAN (DAMPATI).
Among others who have produced Mitra's works are Ratan Thiyam, Waman Kendre, Ali Zakher and Jamaluddin Hossain of Bangladesh. Even in Kolkata while Mitra was himself staging SAJANO BAGAAN, PARABAS, ALOKANANDAR PUTRAKANYA, CHHAYAR PRASAD, SOVAJATRA, MUNNI O SAAT CHOWKIDAR, JA NEI BHARATEY, etc...other directors like Bibhas Charavarty, Kumar Roy, Soumitra Chatterjee, Tripti Mitra, Ashok Mukhopadhyay, Kaushik Sen, Ramaprasad Banik and Debesh Chattopadhyay staged CHAKBHANGA MADHU, RAJDARSHAN, NARAK GULJAAR, PAKHI, KINU KAHARER THETAR, NAKCHHABITA, ANKHI PALLAB, DEBI SARPAMASTA and others. Add to this list the lesser known thespians - professionals, amateurs, school and college students from Kolkata, Bengaluru, Madras, Jammu, Mumbai, Manipur, Odisha, Sydney, Canberra, Toronto, Birmingham who have also staged his work.
Sundaram's festival with its limited resources, focuses mostly on groups in and around Bengal but even so it has managed to include a play reading, discussion, a puppet show and a brochure carrying write-ups by Sachin Tewari, Rajinder Nath, Kiron Bhatnagar, Anant Mahapatra and others.
Ankhi Sarkar
Ankhi Sarkar (AS): Doesn't it upset you that instead of acknowledging your significance, people still tend to see you as a zonal or regional dramatist?
Manoj Mitra (MM): Didn't know they do...but even so I wouldn't mind. In fact I feel very strongly about it. I am first and foremost a regional dramatist. No writer can afford to ignore his own milieu, his own language. How can someone who doesn't know himself well ever hope to understand others? You can't just wake up one day and claim to be a universal dramatist. All my works are firmly grounded in my world; they breathe the same air and talk of the problems that touch me. It is through this personal, individual perspective that I can hope to touch my viewers. I would even say that regardless of the content of the play, if a dramatist is successful in depicting the lives he is talking about ...that's half the battle won.
AS: But wouldn't all that local flavour intimidate those from other regions?
MM: Why should it? Rather I think it should be part of the attraction. I mean everyone is curious about what goes on in one's neighbour's kitchen. And I wasn't talking of just adding a few folk songs or depicting local customs on stage.... I was talking of what the Doiwala is to Pather Panchali. Where else would you find such a curd seller? Or for that matter Apu's grocer cum teacher...only in Bengal was such a species available. If Ray had wanted to please the universe he may have just made Apu go to school with a proper teacher but he doesn't and people loved it. There are layers and layers one can build if one understands the world one is delineating. When Indir Thakurun of Pather Panchali stands with the worn mat under her arm and a ghonti in her hand, people have no trouble comprehending her intense helplessness.
All said and done these are superficial things. Like weeds or moss floating on the surface or entangled with the rocks on the banks of the river or in a pool. They don't really matter yet they do give clues about the kind of water underneath.
AS: But your plays are not confined to the ordinary humdrum reality. In fact the element of surprise gives a distinct flavour to your comedy and each play (even if they remain located within four walls like ALOKANANDA or PARABAS) offers a newer and deeper experience. In two recent plays GANDHOJAALE and BHAGIRATHER MURTI that are part of the festival, you dabble with the surreal and play with time and space...
MM (laughing): Well then I must have succeeded. You see, the events of life to me are like a pack of cards- how you perceive them is what makes them comic or tragic. As a writer you play with them. The laughter in my plays is not just laughter. The stick dipped into water looks crooked but it doesn't really bend. What changes is just the perception. The same subject can be treated differently. SAJAANO BAGAN, KENARAM BECHARAM, PARABAS could all have been written as grim tragedies but by doing the unexpected I increase its scope and make it more effective.
In GANDHOJAALE you have this young man Neelkantha who is not only blind but is accidentally endowed with a superhuman sense of smell; no matter how faint the smell he can identify it. Neelkantha however is ashamed of this 'gift'. To him it is an animal trait and he longs dearly to be a normal human being. Neelkantha is married to Pankhi who is also blind and also carries the burden of a shameful history. The play you may say touches the twilight zones as it tests the light and darkness, the seen and the unseen of the world we live in.
AS: You don't deal with the legends of heroes in JA NEI BHARATEY. Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidur are not larger than life. You show them not in the court or in the battlefield but at home- often squatting on the ground and chatting. Yet there are so many heroes in your plays- men and women of extreme resilience who have the courage to stick to their beliefs. Like Banchharam, Alokananda from ALOKANANDAR PUTRAKANYA.
MM: Even our Neelkantha displays courage and determination not to be pulled into an animal like show of violence. He has been wronged all his life but when he is in a position to finally avenge himself and those around him, he has the courage to restrain himself and ask the wrongdoer to change his ways.
AS: But Pankhi wants her rapist to be punished and to be destroyed. With rape having captured our national sentiment, one wonders if your conception of women and their reaction to oppression has changed. In CHHAYAR PRASHAD Subhadrangi decides to stay back in the palace to ensure that her son Asoka becomes the next king. In ALOKANANDAR PUTRAKANYA we have Manasi staying back to teach her oppressive in laws and husband a lesson. But in your new play ASCHOURJO FUNTOSEE, Sita and all the women of Lanka set out on a mayurpankhi to discover their own destinies.
MM: Yes that is bound to happen as one gets new insights daily. But remember Badami of CHAKBHANGA MADHU does take her revenge.
AS: How do you react to so many people doing your plays?
MM: To tell the truth I am overwhelmed but I am also nervous. I am a little possessive about my plays and would like them to be done in the way they were written. Directors should try to take the trouble to find out and to accept me for who I am. Of course I have nothing against adaptations. That much creative freedom has to be given.
Ankhi Sarkar is a Kolkata-based theatre researcher, costume designer and translator.
Ankhi Sarkar (AS): Doesn't it upset you that instead of acknowledging your significance, people still tend to see you as a zonal or regional dramatist?
