Imphal, November 30: It was on 27th November evening that intellectuals from a cross section of Manipuri society thronged JN Manipur Dance Academy Hall to witness a play entitled, �Rajarshi Bhagyachandra,� a Banian Repertory Theatre production written by MC Arun, an unconventional thinker who analyses Manipuri society from the prism of contemporary conflicts and cultural renaissance.

The one hour and twenty minutes play enthralled the audience and triggered a chain reaction as the play ended.

I personally saw most of the audience congratulating the playwright MC Arun on the portico of the auditorium while coming out of the auditorium.

I also overheard one gentleman pointing at the flip-flop side of the play (probably the gentleman is a close friend or a well wisher of the playwright).

But this provoked me to come out with this write up.

I just rushed from Moreh to witness the play the same evening.

And along with my youngest son entered the theatre and saw not only a host of theatre luminaries but also the cream of our society sitting and waiting eagerly for the start of the play.

What brought me from Moreh to Imphal after my sojourn to the border town was primarily the excitement generated by the title of the play, �Rajarshi Bhagyachandra, a man ahead of his times� when anything about Vaishanavism or Hinduism is being regarded as bad taste in the present day Manipuri society and as such I eagerly awaited the play to start.

At the end of the play the first and foremost question I had in my mind was if the playwright was attempting to redefine, �We and our Nationhood� through his work.

Nevertheless, I presumed that the playwright definitely made a feeble attempt to do so.

He did not use the word �Manipuri�, rather he employed the word �Meitei�, the dominant community around which other smaller communities have been revolving from time immemorial to represent �We�.

On the other hand, he used �Manipur� instead of �Kangleipak�, which is now a sentimentally popular name among the younger generation.

Thus �Meitei� encompasses all the Manipuris, as per the analogy that the language spoken by the Meiteis is known as Manipuri.

This aptly proves why the Manipuri Muslims call themselves as Meitei Pangal.

Hence the play defines �We� in the 18th Century, a crucial period in the history of Manipur.

The then Manipur comprised immigrants from the west (Nongchup Haram) and those from the east (Nongpok Haram), besides the autochthones consisting of Lois in the valley and various aborigines in the hills.

The writer also attempted to redefine and reassert �our Nationhood�.

He has firm conviction on both territorial and cultural Nationalism.

For territorial Nationalism he looked back to Pamheiba alias Garibniwaj Maharaja, the grandfather of Rajarshi Bhagyachandra.

Bhagyachandra shifted his palace to Canchipur with a vow that he would enter Kangla only after regaining the entire territories established by his grandfather Garibniwaj Maharaja.

MC Arun regarded Rajarshi Bhagyachandra as an icon for cultural Nationalism.

He, as a keen observer of the society, culture, ethnicity and contemporary conflicts found a suitable character in none other than Rajarshi Bhagyachandra to depict his dream of social engineering in present Manipur.

This is the genesis of the play.

On some occasion of the on-stage debate the elderly Bidhu, who wore coat, pant, neck tie, could not put a befitting challenge to the young Anita, who was in ultra modern dress.

However, the roles of Bidhu and Amita reminded me of �Sutradhars� in the Ras Leela, which was propounded by Bhagyachandra as a flagship of Manipuri culture the world over.

MC Arun asked himself a few questions; firstly, can the people of Manipur sideline Govindajee, who was so dear to their forefathers ?; secondly, can we continue the same Vaishnavite faith which is often criticised by the younger generation for creating a rift between the valley and the hill people? thirdly, is there any alternative to the present crisis in Manipur by way of a synthesis between transcending thesis and its antithetical distractions? The play is the answer to all the questions.

MC Arun successfully attempted to depict Govindajee through the eyes of a Tangkhul woman.

By doing so he made a genuine effort to show a cultural affinity with the west rather as a political compulsion than as a religious one.

Admittedly, Manipur's threat then came from the East and not from the West.

And as such the Vaishnavite cult in Manipur is an indigenous one and an ingenious product of our soil.

Hence, there should not be any conflict among Vaishnavism, indigenous faith and tribal culture in Manipur.

The playwright also seemingly questioned if Rajarshi Bhagyachandra had a political dream that subsequently turned into a famous dream in which Lord Govinda revealed the Raas Leela to him and directed him to make an idol out of an indigenous Theibong tree from Kaina hillock.

The Theibong tree was cut into different pieces and various idols were carved out.

However, none matched the image that Rajarshi saw in his dream.

After several attempts the present idol of Lord Govinda was found to be identical to the image he saw in his famous dream.

Surprisingly, the play was also focused on a Tangkhul woman who first saw the Lord in the form of a tree at Kaina hillock.

What a wonderful social engineering that the playwright is attempting at ! In my humble opinion the ongoing debate is not the production of Banian Repertory Theatre itself but it centres around the dreams and visions of the playwright MC Arun in search of another Bhagyachandra.

Production wise, the music was wonderful, but still there might be some scope for improvement.

Costume was also quite good but the hair style of Rajarshi Bhagyachandra during his famous dream looked like that of an ordinary man.

Though Banian Repertory Theatre is a renowned one, its artistes found it extremely difficult to communicate the message that the playwright aimed to give through his play.

That made the play bound by history, which was admitted by the artistes themselves after the play.

However, I do not see any shortcomings in either the Director of the play, MC Thoiba, or his accomplished artistes.

Rajarshi Bhagyachandra of MC Arun was a tight bound character and similarly the artistes were also very restricted in portraying their roles as �the play was an experiment in blending historical events and its interpretations, maxims, and dialectics and meaning and justification� as mentioned by none other than the Director MC Thoiba himself an engineer by profession, perhaps out to translate MC Arun's dream into a reality.

In the fast changing scenario in Manipur, MC Arun is dreaming a socio-political dream quite identical to that of Rajarshi Bhagyachandra in the historiography of Manipur.

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