Jatin Bora

Guwahati, May 27: Three decades after Biju Phukan cycled his way into the hearts of the Assamese audience, Jatin Bora will sing Mon hiradoi saikel nohoy tilinga on stage.

It’s that time of the year again and mobile theatre groups are getting ready to woo audiences in every nook and corner of the state.

Brindabon Theatre has decided to adapt the evergreen Assamese film Bowari on stage this season.

In the past, too, mobile theatres have adapted films, like Titanic, into plays. Over the years, such ventures have seen mixed results.

Bowari released in January 1982. It was a super hit. Abhijeet Bhattacharjya, the scriptwriter of the play, remembers the mad rush for tickets at cinema halls back then. “I watched the movie at the age of five. But it made such a deep impression that when I wrote the script (for the play), I did not need to watch it again,” he said.

The film’s beautiful depiction of rural and urban life in Assam prompted the playwright to adapt it. “Rural and urban society were depicted beautifully in Bowari. Besides, it presented human relationships wonderfully. This was the first reason why I picked up the film,” said Bhattacharjya, one of the most popular playwrights in the mobile theatre industry.

A still from Bowari

“The other reason for choosing Bowari was its evergreen songs. The movie has six songs, four of which will be included in the play,” Bhattacharya said. Besides Mon hiradoi, the other three songs are Nai ejar phula nai, Eje nohoy ronangonor kahini and one Borgeet.

The film had few characters but its stage avatar will have some additional minor characters.

“However, the original story has not been changed. To give hints about the story’s timeline, I have inserted passing references of the Assam Movement that was at its peak at that time,” Bhattacharjya said.

The film was about a village youth, Gokul, who joins the army and loses his memory in a plane accident. News reaches his home that he has died in battle. His father and wife, weighed by debt, work in the house of a villager. Dramatically, Gokul gets back his memory when a cricket ball hits him on the head and returns home.

Bowari was one of the most commercially successful Assamese movies that catapulted its director Shivaprasad Thakur into the limelight.