chowk and shwaas

shanta gokhale reviews a new marathi play presented by Rangasanga, a new initiative by the sahitya sangha mandir to promote experimental plays. Chowk, written by Makarand Sathe, and directed by Sathe himself, along with Atul Pethe, sounds like a very interesting experiment about interactions and sensitivities of folks from different points of view and walks of life ... who come together in a chowk. its kinda weird, writing about a review of a play, rather than the play itself. but for a lack of opportunity to actually go see the play, this is the next best thing. shanta gokhale does describe the play in a fair bit of detail (particularly the idealogy, and performances) - and certainly managed to generate some motivation for me to go watch the play. hopefully there will still be a chance to do so, the next time i am in mumbai.

on another note, the marathi movie shwaas won the national award for best movie. its a tremendous achievement, in an era where the marathi film industry is almost extinct, and the only marathi actors/actresses to be seen are in hindi movies, playing character roles, speaking hindi with a marathi accent that would make any marathi guy (read punekar) proud. in spite of a thriving theater and literary circuit, marathi cinema has lagged behind other regionals (malayalam/bengali) in making quality productions. shwaas, directed by sandeep sawant, is the story of a boy, suffering from a rare eye cancer, and about to lose his sight to surgery that would save his life though. ashwin chitale plays the young boy Parshya, and shared the award for best child artiste with Kalidasan for the malayalam film Ente Veedu Apoontem. producer arun nalawade also plays the boy's grandfather, who tries to fill the boy's mind with lasting images of the world and sneaks hiim out of the hospital, a day before the surgery. the movie is largely based on the real life experience of pune based oncosurgeon, dr. shailesh puntambekar.

shwaas comes exactly 50 years after a marathi movie, acharya atre's shyaamachii aaii, based on the novel by sane guruji, won the national award with child artiste madhav vaze as the main protagonist. again, look forward to an opportunity to see the movie on the big screen, perhaps here in the states or else atleast on the next trip back home ... hopefully there will lead to a resurgence in quality marathi cinema ...