PROBASHI- A Cultural News Magazine Volume 2 Issue 2 | Page 26

Probashi-Cover Theme

Interview with Moloyashree Hashmi
were written by young playwrightsBharat Bhagya Vidhata by Ramesh
Upadhyay and Bakri by Sarveshar
Dyal Saxena. These were big plays
with a big cast, music, lights sounds
the
works.
Most
of
the
performances were hosted by trade
unions and social organisations.
There was an extended tour of
Western UP organised by the Kisan
Sabha and people from many
villages would walk in hundreds to
the venue. The shows would begin
in the late evening and go on till
past mid night.

Safdar, before the start of a street play in Kolkata

My parents got married in 1952. It
was a marriage of choice from both
sides. In 1955-56, my mother got a
job in the Government. In1940s the
Indian People’s Theatre Association
(IPTA) was very active in Delhi.
After a few years there was a
decline. In the mid fifties it became
active again, and my mother was a
part of it. She acted in plays and
was also the office secretary. I
remember that on Saturdays or on
holidays, my mother would take me
to the rehearsals. I have many
memories of the people and the
plays. I distinctly remember Binoy
Roy, Niranjan Sen, Niyaz Haider,
Ved Mehta and others. Then in the
sixties there was another decline in
IPTA. In 1969 it was revived by
young theatre enthusiasts from the
Students Federation of India (SFI).
Many theatre persons came and
joined them among whom were
Uday
Chatterjee,
Shyamol
Mukherjee, Subhash Tyagi, Safdar
Hashmi, and Rakesh Saxena. These
young people also got in touch with
the older generation and that is
how my mother came back to IPTA.
By then I was in college and would
sometimes meet her after college,
in the evening at the IPTA office in

Shankar market. There were many
interesting people in the groupKanti Mohan, Chanchal Chauhan,
Ashok
Chakradhar,
Ramesh
Upadhyaya, Kajal Ghosh and
others. I would just hang around.
The group had lots of energy.
Slowly I became the part of the
song squad and my first play was
Kimlish based on the story of a
Bihar peasant.
How did Janam sustain in its initial
days.
The birth of Jana Natya Manch
(JANAM) was in the nature of a
breakaway from this revived IPTA.
In 1973 JANAM was founded by
Rakesh Saxena, Subhash Tyagi,
Uday Chaterjee, Kajol Ghosh,
Safdar Hashmi and others.
JANAM’s first production was
Mrityur Atit, a Bangla play by Utpal
Dutt. JANAM took this play to Delhi
Durga Pujas and did performances
for which they were paid. The
Durga Puja festival spans over five
days and the JANAM team would
race
around,
performing,
sometimes up to three times a
night.
The early plays that Janam did
24

Just a few days before the
Emergency was proclaimed JANAM
was experimenting with a two actor
comic piece called Kursi, Kursi, Kursi
[Chair, Chair, and Chair]? It was
about an elected king who is sitting
on a chair. When a new king is
elected, the outgoing king gets up
from his chair but the chair rises
with him and no matter how hard
they try to separate the king from
his chair, it becomes impossible.
This play was performed at Boat
Club lawns during the lunch hour.
Hundreds of people from the

Moloyashree Hashmi performing at
a street play in 2012