Abdul
Gani
Guwahati:
Far away from the killing fields of the Bodo heartland and volatile valleys of
Manipur, a one-act play staged at Pune has evoked keen interest and discussions
on Northeast’s troubled times. On Sunday, people in Pune were discussing
Northeast and Assam as a one-act play on the life and struggles of “Iron Lady”
Irom Sharmila was staged.
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| The poster of the play |
Besides, noted scholars discussed the current
situation prevailing in Assam in a bid to find a solution. “We are very proud
and absolutely thankful to Ojas SV for her generosity and love for performing
her acclaimed one-act play La Mashale,” Diganta Deka of Grubshup, who organised
the event on Sunday, told Seven Sisters Post.
Pune-based theatre artiste Ojas S V adapted
Malayalam playwright Civic Chandran’s drama Meira Paibi (Women torch-bearers of
Manipur) in La Mashale to get the urban audience hooked onto the life of
Manipur’s “Iron Lady”. Ojas has already performed the 40-minute-long soliloquy
on stage several times across the country in the last couple of years. She says
her objective is to bring people closer to the heroic life of Sharmila and to
throw light on cases of human rights violation in Manipur.
The play, which is powered by poetry written by
Sharmila herself, anecdotes from her life and the traditional folk stories of
Manipur, tries to recreate the horrifying circumstances which made the 39-year-old
civil rights activist sit on an indefinite hunger strike to protest against the
‘draconian’ Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
“With the recent events in and about the Northeast,
we feel really saddened but more resolved to do our best to continue to spread
awareness about the region. I think more such events will make people aware
about our region,” Deka further said.
Besides, a couple of prominent personalities from
the Northeast also discussed the current issues with the people present on the
occasion. Senior scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) Dr Haladhar
Dev Sarma and Giridhar Mahanta, one of the senior-most officers in the Assam
government, were present on the occasion to share their view on the prevailing
situation in Assam.
“It should be solved politically. Gradually the
people have started feeling insecure. The movements too have failed to fetch
results so it’s the time to address the core issue which is the influx of
illegal Bangladesi nations,” Sarma said.
He also urged all the political parties to keep
their personal agendas aside and focus on the common problem of the state.
On the other hand, Mahanta said that to solve the p
re-independence issue — influx — public awareness is quite important.
“Corruption too has played a major role in creating more problems in Assam,” he
said.
In the 1980s, Dr Haladhar Dev Sarma was in the
governing body of the All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu) leading the students’
movement against illegal immigration. Around the same time, Giridhar Mahanta
was a senior Assam government official. (Seven Sisters Post)
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