Theatre Guide

“This work began basically as a Phd project. In those days in early 2000,there was an NDA government in power and I was looking at ways in which the right-wing cultural hegemony could be challenged,” he explains.

G P Deshpande,an eminent playwright and senior faculty member at Jawaharlal Nehru University,where Ghosh was enrolled,pointed him towards Janam for his research project. The theatre group,created in the early 1970s,is best known for its street plays that protest sociopolitical and economic ills. Ghosh,who has never been in any play all his life,found himself entering the charged world of Janam,sitting in for workshops,travelling with plays and interviewing its members besides poring through news and other reports on the group. At night,he would scribble about the events of the day. “I enjoyed this project,” he says,adding that it sustained him when he was faced “with having no job”,and stayed with him when he had “too many jobs”.

The book,however,goes beyond the thesis that Ghosh submitted in 2006. The 11 chapters travel through the early days of the group,the era following the death of Safdar Hashmi,one of the founder’s of Janam who was brutally killed during a street theatre performance in 1989,and the various actors and organisers of the group. Perhaps because Ghosh,who was born and grew up in Kolkata,was an outsider,both to the Capital and Janam,he takes an objective stance,pointing out several of Janam’s defects in the book as well its strengths. The book,he says,was aimed at “people who are interested in theatre or cultural movements”.

A History of the Jan Natya Manch could also have answers to Ghosh’s age-old interest in collective activity. “I am looking at how collective activity can work. Theatre cannot happen without a group interaction. It’s not like films,where some members of the cast need never meet,” Ghosh says.