Ratan Thiyam Visit To Pune 2007

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E-Pao! Theatre Review - Ratan Thiyam's Visit To Pune

Ratan Thiyam's Visit To Pune
A personal experience

Koijam Ravi *

It was during mid-january that Mr. Ratan Thiyam, the reknown theatre personality came to Pune with his entire troupe; it was Mr.Amol Palekar, the yesteryears filmstar, who had organised and had invited Mr. Thiyam for the Chorus festival here in Pune.

The Chorus festival was a four day affair;

I consider myself really unfortunate as I couln't witness the plays staged on the first three days of the festival due to some unavoidable reasons and could only manage to be there for the last day which was on 14th of january.

Three plays were staged on this final day, which was named as 'Manipur Trilogy' and to be honest each of this three plays left all the audiences spell bound.

The last of the three plays staged was the famous ' Nine hills and one valley', I must confess that it was only the second time in my entire life that I've ever watched a stage play, the last time being when I was just a kid during my 8th standard i.e around 10 years ago.

On getting the news that Chorus festival was going to be held in Pune, I called up my father and broke to him this news, the first sentence that came out from him was to go and watch it.

Such was the beauty of that play that even for a layman like me in the field of drama it will be one of the most cherishable moments in my life.

Ratan Thiyam speaking at the opening of 'The Shrine'.

Not only me, I took along a Marathi friend with me, who was literally dancing out of enjoyment inside the bus on our way back to our place. He thanked me for taking him along for the play and believe me up till today he can't stop narrating about his experience watching the play.

A Q&A Session was held after the first play was staged.

One of the best compliments given by one of the audience, who was also from North-east was, "Sir, recently I've been to New York and people out there know you. You've truely made us global".

I'm not used to showing my emotions but that day I couln't control myself; I approached him after the play and told him that I was feeling proud calling myself a Manipuri to which he responded that, "One should always feel proud calling himself or herself a Manipuri".

He further added, "You people have to do a lot more for MANIPUR. Manipur is awaiting your contribution. Your family members back at home are worried about you so don't do anything such,that will hurt their feelings".

It will be one of the most memorable moments of my life and its a message to all my Manipuri brothers and sisters that, "We need to do more for our region and bring it on the global stage as Ratan Thiyam has done with his plays"

* Koijam Ravi contributed to e-pao.net for the first time. He can be contacted at [email protected] This review was webcasted on March 19th , 2007 .

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