Celebrating the seventh day of artistic gathering, NIT Fest staged four plays on Monday at four different theaters in Kathmandu. The day’s edition showcased plays especially from Nepal and India reflecting upon the cultural, societal and psycho-social facets of shared stories, mutual beliefs and understanding. Below are some of the brief descriptions of the plays:

Aaran (Nepal): Shilpee Theater

Aaran is the story of hardship faced by a girl and her father from the so-called lower caste family of Solukhumbu district in Nepal. The girl happens to marry a boy from so-called upper class and struggles to adjust in the society. Her father Kailo works in a furnace (aaran), a place to prepare iron tools and utensils. Because his daughter suffers from her inter-cultural marriage and bears the unbearable hatred, he himself revolts against the society.

Director: Youbaraj Sharma ‘YURAK’

Group: Sagarmatha Natya Samuha

Language: Nepali

Duration: 1 hour

 

Ek Mulaqat Manto Se (India): Mandala Theater

This play meets Manto, one of the most influential Indo-Pakistani writers who wrote mostly partition stories and essays. His life dwells around his childhood, family and friends, facing persecution, self-ridicule, depression, being broke, helplessness, drinking, Hindi cinema, satire, irony, hypocrisy, sadness, strife, and moral decay. The performance is based on his written articles that explore his life including the social changes he witnessed at the time of India’s Partition.

Playwright: Saadat Hasan Manto

Director: Ashwath Bhatt

Group: Actors Cult & Theatre Garage Project

Language: Hindi & Urdu

Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes

 

Head to Head (India): Kausi Theater

Head to head delves deeper into the answer of existential questions like where does identity lie: head or body? Or both? ‘The actor’ with large bodies deal with this quandary on a daily basis. By using sections of the iconic Kannada play by Girish Karnad, it interrogates identity and archetypes, and the much-vaunted mind-body (dis)connection. It also examines the body of politics and politics of the body that characters themselves encounter during their own work as individuals and as a community.

Director: Shabari Rao

Group: The Big Fat Company, Bangalore

Language: Kannada with English Subtitles

Duration: 1 hour 5 minutes

 

Helen (India): Theater Mall

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller is an autobiography that recounts experiences as she adjusts to the world as a deaf and visibly impaired. The play begins the story by describing Helen, her earliest memories of sights and sounds and her memory of contracting the illness that resulted in her deafness and blindness.

Playwright / Director: Kismat Bano

Group: Wings Theater

Language: Hindi

Duration: 70 minutes