Last year, I had reviewed Joyār Bhātir Kābya, about trafficking in the Sundarban. This year, Bandel Arohee’s dramatization of Amar Mitra’s novel, Dhanapatir Char, set in that delta, too, also brings in the theme of its women facing exploitation by predators from the mainland, so I have spliced it to the older review (below) to give the subject greater context.
Of course, Mitra’s sprawling, nearly 400-page book has a much larger compass, both physical and metaphysical. He depicts an immersed shoal that emerges from the Bay of Bengal annually during the six dry months, only to submerge again when the waves rise higher before the monsoon arrives, remaining under water for the next six months. When the island appears above sea level, men from the land go there to eke out a livelihood from fishing, accompanied by destitute women who become their temporary partners during that period, living together in makeshift shacks.
We immediately recognize magical realism at work, for the community there worship under a tree—a botanical impossibility if the sandbank does sink for half the year. And they worship a giant turtle called Dhanapati, whom they regard as Vishnu’s kurma avatar, but who is also synonymous with the isle and with an ancient man of the same name who says he owns it, having discovered it centuries ago in the bodily form of a Portuguese pirate, Pedru, and that the island-turtle will swim back to Lisbon when it suits him. Enter the rapacious administration and police, who claim the land as the government’s property, marked for “development”.
The urgent environmental significance of this scenario receives much support from Mitra’s profusion of ecological descriptions meandering away from the story like his Kalnagini river, and which, sadly, cannot translate onto the stage. So, Ranjan Roy’s play extracts just the straight plot, but does an excellent job of it notwithstanding the two-hour constraint. He also directs the team ably in possibly Arohee’s most ambitious large-scale production to date. Outstanding performances come from Roy himself as the aged Dhanapati (photo, left), all the actresses, particularly Barnali Chatterjee as Batashi, and Satyaki Bhattacharyya as the ambivalent Block Development Officer (photo, right), conflated from two of Mitra’s characters, Malakar and Aniket.
[30 April 2025]
No doubt motivated by the terrible Sandeshkhali incidents this year, Durgadas Smrity Sangha’s Joyār Bhātir Kābya, written, directed, designed and choreographed by Kingshuk Bandyopadhyay, takes us into life in the Sundarban, backed by panoramic projections of the tidal riverscape and populated by the villagers and their secular culture uniting Hindus and Muslims.
In this apparently unspoilable pastoral setting emerges the old zamindari oppressor stereotype who exploits local women. I wish Bandyopadhyay had called a spade a spade and identified goonda-political leaders as the devils that they are. There is little point or bravery in hiding them behind the screen of mostly obsolete villains.
Moreover, the sudden sensational entrance of the victim and her hysteria, however real and shocking, lead further recourse to the familiar formulae of melodrama. And in a melodrama, of course, there comes the inevitably positive resolution—rather than in the higher genre of tragedy.
Bandyopadhyay does train the predominantly young and inexperienced cast in excellent teamwork and singing. The senior actors, Pabitra Chattopadhyay as the director of a visiting theatre troupe and Gopal Chakraborty as the junior Karta, present the most mature characterizations.
[1 November 2024]