Tandon Bari suddenly woke up from its slumber. Its ornate facade, in shades of white, aqua and red, had new admirers. The ugly patches of cement, putty and random scribbles in chalk ceased to dampen its glorious past. The dust gathering on the rawk of the 94-year-old house at Banarasi Ghosh Street also silently cleared to make way for the cast of Kyunki Champa Ka Vriksh Utne Hi Dino Mein Phool Deta Hai Jitna Tab Deta Tha, a play directed by Anubha Fatehpuria of city theatre group Padatik and Trisys Foundation as part of their series Heritage x Theatre — Of Spaces & Other Stories that aims at making heritage addresses in the city an alternative venue for stage productions.
Their first production chose to present select writings of Rabindranath Tagore, whose house is not very far from the venue in north Calcutta; satirist Sharad Joshi and Pakistani writer and playwright Saadat Hasan Manto, and together the script was an interesting tapestry.
The 65-minute play began with actor Jaya Seal Ghosh taking center stage as Tagore’s Mrinal in Streer Potro with a host of other performers that included Ashok Singh, Saayak Chakraborty, Palash Chaturvedi, Balram Jha, Pramit Pratim Ghosh, Ashok Mehra, Rohit Basfore, Paraangad Shaw, Sumit Goswami and Antara Dasgupta. Set in the traditional baithak style, the play infused Fatehpuria’s love for theatre and architecture in a beautiful symmetry and remained unaffected by the jaywalking of the passerby, a definite challenge for theatre artistes. True to its intent, the play that showed remarkable performance by Fathepuria and others intelligently used the rooms overlooking the rawk and the first-floor barandah, which stands out for its remarkable design.
“People turning up for a play in a non-descript north Calcutta lane that cannot be deciphered on Google Maps makes this initiative a success. We expected to be thrown out when we knocked on this house but we were welcomed warmly. Even the neighbours supported us, and we are very thankful. This is the beginning of something big. We have exhausted all routes to bring attention to heritage through the conventional way and I thought let’s work with theatre and take the help of Manto, Tagore and Sharad Joshi,” said Mudar Patherya, event conceptualiser and partner.
Jaya Seal reads out the script in the backdrop of the entrance to Tandon Bari
The first floor became a part of the play quite organically
Anubha Fatehpuria said: “It was overwhelming to see 110 people reaching a location like that and sitting in that heat for 65 minutes. Truly, Calcutta surpassed our expectations and post the show we got a lot of enquiries and requests for a repeat show. So we will be doing a repeat show of the same play at the same venue in November or December.”
