Much like the now-celebrated Je Jānlāgulor Ākāsh Chhilo and at around the same time, Angan’s Nilāmbālā Chhe Ānā pivots the spotlight on life in Kolkata’s refugee “colonies” over the decades and the political unrest surrounding it. Unlike Jānlāgulor, which begins in the 1990s, Nilāmbālā covers a much longer span, starting from the 1960s, traversing those troubled years before the Left came to power, then embracing the promise of hope before disillusionment set in and the Transformation took over in 2011. Arguably, therefore, the period sprawls too much for dramatist Santanu Majumder to compress within two hours. He gives particularly short shrift to the past 15 years, perhaps not wanting to annoy the ruling party.
Through the years, the eponymous street vendor with his pushcart (reminiscent of Brecht’s Mother Courage) occupies centrestage, accompanied by the boy-youth-man Lakai who stays in the colony with his family (both in the photo alongside). Superficially some things do change—even the vendor’s flat rate of six annas must eventually increase—and “improvements” occur, but we can make out that conditions ultimately remain the same.
The play showcases sterling performances from Sanjoy Mukherjee (the Bihari Nilamwala) and Raju Dhar (the narrator–Lakai), supported by the latter’s parents and grandmother (Avi Sengupta, Baby Sengupta and Sangita Chowdhury). As director, Avi Sengupta blocks the collective scenes very well, but must iron out the uneven ageing among the actors as they grow older over 60 years, and delete the unnecessary repetition of one character’s obsessive bowel issues. Debabrata Maity’s set of suspended sackcloth signifying the huts and shacks catches the eye.
(25 February 2026)