Jammu, 7th of January, 2024: Natrang staged a dramatic presentation of Munshi Prem Chand’s famous short story, ‘Kafan’ here today at Natrang Studio Theatre in its Sunday Theatre Series. The play was directed by Neeraj Kant. Though written many years ago by country’s most celebrated visionary writer, the story appears timeless and still has a lot to convey to the present generation and even generations to come and it is a very precise satire on the degradation of human values.
The play revolves around a father and his son who work as labourers in a village. The son’s wife is near the end of her pregnancy and is in need of medical attention, which the family certainly cannot afford. The poor lady cries in pain as ‘Ghisu’ and his son ‘Madhav’ watch helplessly. She eventually dies during childbirth, adding to the problems of the father and son. Driven to extreme poverty and despair, they have no money or means to perform the funeral rites for the unfortunate women. They cannot ignore the dead body lying in their hut, and set out to ask the villagers for some monetary assistance which they get after some effort but when it comes to the purchase the shroud for her, they change their mind and rather buy liquor out of that charity money, giving consolation to their sinful souls that what would a dead woman do with that piece of cloth, she does not need anything but blessings. The play very emotionally exposes the monster of alcoholism and the story seems to be so relevant and close to the contemporary times. The play shows that people ruin their life and lives of their dependents in lust of alcohol and those who are captured in its trap may have nothing to eat and feed their family but will go out of ways to muster resources for the acquisition of liquor. Kafan which translates to a shroud in English describes the degradation of human beings to the lowest level possible.
Natrang young actors who performed in the play included Sanket Bhagat, Vishal Sharma, Chaitanaya Shekhar, Abhimanyu Choudhary and Harshul Kaul . Lights of the play were designed and executed by Neeraj Kant whereas Kananpreet Kaur rendered the music of the play. The show was coordinated by Mohd. Yaseen.
