Bidyut Kumar Nath’s earliest memories of growing up in Assam’s Nonoi village are of the panic that filled the adults when it rained constantly. The Kopili and Sampawati rivers would overflow, the little streams that lined the hills would swell and all the water would wash into the village.
“The rest of India would see us on television, as we cowered on our rooftops for shelter. During floods, people would no longer have homes as they were swept away, the fields were inundated and the cattle had no grass to eat. Since the dead could not be cremated, they were tied to banana trees and cast in the water,” says Nath, 36.
In August 2022, while resting at home after a theatre workshop, Nath was struck by a story idea about an Assam village where a devastating flood results in the death of the protagonist’s young daughter. As soon as the idea struck him, Nath asked his wife Jutrishna Gohain, a theatre performer and a Bihu and modern dancer, to write the story down. This would become Nath’s first original theatre script. The play was named Raghunath, after the protagonist. Gohain was cast as Ragunath’s wife, Janaki.
On March 21, Raghunath swept one of India’s top theatre competitions, winning six of the 13 categories at the Mahindra Excellence of Theatre Awards (META). The awards were for Best Production, Best Director, Best Original Script, Best Male Actor, Best Light Design and Best Stage Design. Four of these six awards, including Best Male Actor, were for Nath alone.
In the play, the grieving Raghunath comes up with a bold plan involving blind faith in religion in order to draw government attention to the village. “His aim is to ensure that no other child in the village ever drowns due to the lack of a bridge,” says Nath.
The play also won the award for Best Production at META. (SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT)
After Nath thought of the story of Raghunath, he decided to try to put it on stage. Since there was no money to make a play, he turned to crowdfunding. “I wrote on Facebook that I needed money to make a play. In a few hours, there was a donor who offered Rs 10,000. The second donor had Rs 4,000 to give. Then came Rs 2,000, Rs 500, Rs 200 and Rs 100 from people across the state. We collected Rs 40,000 and staged the play in August 2022,” he says.
The play unfolds on a stage dominated by a bamboo structure, with human actors accompanied by a puppet. Through stylised movements, the performers bring alive a parent’s love for his child and the crisis faced by the villagers. “We didn’t start out to make a difference to the whole wide world but to tell a story of people who are vulnerable to natural disasters and government apathy,” Nath tells The Indian Express.
Assam has a vibrant theatre culture that includes mobile theatre companies stopping by villages and towns. In the last decade, theatre has spread to spaces like cleared paddy fields, forests and living rooms. Nath was an imaginative child, who would stay lost in storybooks and school theatre with friends who were also like him.
He was introduced to theatre by his father, a bansuri player and an excellent cook who struggled to earn a living by running a small shop in the village. “My uncle, Prashant Nath, was a well-known theatre actor. From the time I was in Class 4, he was my hero.”
Nath’s talent was spotted early on, by local groups and visiting theatre performers, such as the late Prabin Saikia, Biplab Jyoti Bhuyan and Nirumoni Bhuyan. They cast him in roles, such as the gardener in his first play and a fox in his second.
A still from Raghunath. (SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT)
As much as he loved it, Nath was forced to give up theatre. “After my father died, the family fell on bad times. To make ends meet, I started giving home tuitions while studying for my Class 12 board exams. Though I cleared ITI (Industrial Training Institute) Nagaon and decided to study Computer Operating and Communication Systems there, I always felt that I wanted to do something else. I even worked as a supervisor in a hotel in Guwahati for three months,” he says.
In college, Nath continued to resist the stage. “I don’t know what had happened to me, except that I was convinced there was no money in the theatre. I preferred to spend time in adda with friends, playing cricket or watching television. A theatre director, Jyoti Prasad Bhuyan, was calling me constantly to act. By the time I went for auditions, the only part left in the play, Charandas Chor, was that of a drunk,” he says.
His performance in that small role was noticed and it landed him another call to play another drunk, this time in the play Sankranti by theatre actor-director Rajen Phukan. In college, Nath and his fellow students decided to create a play, Kareng Bypir Hahi, in which he played an evil king. Selected for an inter-college competition, Kareng Bypir Hahi swept the awards for Best Actress, Best Group and Best Costume, but not Best Actor. “That year, they introduced the Best Villain category and gave it to me. That play was a turning point in my life,” says Nath.
Kareng Bypir Hahi would dominate theatre competitions in the state and bring in prize money. While Nath was winning accolades, his mother was working in people’s homes and as an agricultural labourer in their fields. She also worked as an ASHA worker and earned Rs 1,000 per month. “Her earnings and mine were enough for our family, which comprised my mother, my sister and me. When we couldn’t afford rice, my mother would borrow some from the neighbours. We used to go to the shop with a bottle to get oil for Rs 10. Puffed rice came for Rs 2. In the evenings, we drank the starch water that was left over from cooking the rice,” recalls Nath.
Bidyut acted in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at NSD Sikkim. (SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT)
In 2015, he was selected for the National School of Drama (NSD) in Sikkim and soon became a familiar face on the Assamese stage as an actor who could handle challenging roles.
Bipin Kumar, the head of Bhartendu Natya Academy in Lucknow, was the head of NSD Sikkim when Nath studied there. “He was a very hardworking and intellectual student. He wanted to make new kinds of plays. While he was wonderful with visuals on stage, Bidyut was also an excellent actor. He did A Midsummer Night’s Dream at NSD. What set him apart was that he used to look at his own works. Very few actors can turn their inner eye on themselves. Bidyut could ask himself what he was doing and why, and he was constantly developing himself. When he won the multiple METAs, he was very emotional. So was I. This boy had an urge to know. He used to ask me for time and I used to give him time to help him learn more,” says Kumar.
On his theatre journey so far, Nath says, “I don’t want to make big plays with grand themes. I am drawn to the small stories that we ignore in everyday life. We don’t think about the simple moments and rarely highlight them in art, yet these are the experiences that enrich people’s lives and encourage our humanity.”
Bidyut Kumar Nath’s Raghunath won six of 13 awards at the Mahindra Excellence of Theatre Awards (META), including Best Director. (SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT) 
The play also won the award for Best Production at META. (SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT)
A still from Raghunath. (SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT)
Bidyut acted in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at NSD Sikkim. (SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT)
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