Playing to win

“Several themes came up initially and this was the most liked. There were seven actors altogether however it was a team of fourty from the concept to completion. It was a moment of pride and we have been celebrating since then. Except Vaibhav who does professional theatre the others have been representating the college at various competitions,” says Akshay Tilak the director of Gumphan.

It was after meeting city lawyers,various organisations,PMC and a considerable research that the sixteen students of Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce (BMCC) explored the subject of stray dogs and their impact on the society. Who let the dogs out bagged the second Hari Vinayak trophy. Elaborating more costume designer Asmita Paranjpe says,”We had five students as dogs and from ears to tails we had to design special costumes for them. Exploring the social angle,legal angle and so on we have tried to show that the problem of stray dogs is interconnected with many other social aspects,highly affects the lower class and if the system does not act the common man can go to any extent to tackle it.”

Abhay Mahajan a third year student,who has acted in Harishchandrachi factory that entered the Oscars directed the play along with Om Bhutkar. “I had to give it a very realistic approach . Also to portray the perspective of the animal was quite difficult and we visited various sites and did in depth analysis of the issue,” says Mahajan.

Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT) was the second runner up bagging the Sanjay Trophy for their performance in Dhuan. Speaking on the play Shalvika Patil,the students representative says,”Based on the story by Gulzar it is set in a pre independence India and we found it to be very imposing and putting it up on stage was a testing task but we had promised our seniors that we would give thenm tickets for the prize distribution of the karandak and here we are winning it for the first time in the college’s history.”