Nipon Goswami during the rehearsal. Picture by Biju Boro

June 7: Fifty years ago, it was eminent playwright Durgeswar Barthakur’s Jibonor Pochua that helped the city-based nascent New Art Players (NAP) take wings as a serious socio-cultural group.

Half-a-century later, the group is staging the timeless play again on June 13 at Kumar Bhaskar Natya Mandir as a tribute to the playwright who passed away in 1996 and also to test the progress the group has made since its inception in 1954.

How much the group has travelled in time could be gauged from the fact that Arup Chakravarty, who had played one of the protagonists, is donning the mantle of the director. Well-known actors like Nipon Goswami, Anup Hazarika, Raj Sharma, Mayuri Bharali and Aparna Dutta Chowdhury are playing key roles.

The play’s second coming is part of the group’s four-phase golden jubilee bash getting under way with a three-day programme on June 12. The group chose Jibonor Pochua, originally named Chaknoya and which loosely translated means the winds of life, for its socially-relevant message of how misunderstandings can wreak havoc in one’s life.

“The re-staging has given me an opportunity to judge how much we have progressed individually and as a group. It is a tribute to Barthakur and all those who have helped us realise our dreams. It is aimed at the young. This play will be shorter by half-an-hour to prevent repetition. We have been rehearsing for the past 10 days,” Chakravarty said.

Founder-member and current vice-president Pradip Bordoloi said the first-phase also includes felicitation of prominent sportspersons, dramatists, social activists and a cultural evening on the inaugural day that will be graced by Satradhikar Pitambar Goswami and chief minister Tarun Gogoi.

“We will also hold the prize money third Mriganka Barkakoti memorial inter-school sports quiz on June 14 at Kalaguru Bishnu Rabha Prekshagriha of Cotton College. The entire troupe, headed by president Dipok Kumar Borthakur and general secretary R.. Bhattacharyya, our third generation office-bearers, are working hard to make the celebrations an occasion to remember,” Bordoloi added.

The second, third and fourth phases of the Uzan Bazar-based group will be held in September, December and March respectively. Besides drama, the group has also staged one-act plays, a teleplay (Agomoni), musical feature (Moi Jyoti Prasade Koichu) and dance drama (Chitrangada) and have won prizes at national-level meets. Nipon Goswami and Moloya Goswami are some of the popular faces to have honed their skills at NAP.

The group, founded by a group of Class X students and their associates that included Arabindo Chakraborty, Bordoloi, Hiramon Goswami, Zahid Choudhury, Bangshi Das, Jagadish Sharma, Ramen Baruah, have also used their passion for play to raise funds during the Chinese aggression and the cancer-stricken. Mahendra Kumar Barua was one of the guiding forces of NAP.

In a message to the NAP on its silver jubilee, the legendary Bhupen Hazarika had written, “Its yesterday was full of strength, its today is bright, its tomorrow, I pray, would be brighter.”

NAP has proved him right. “It is still going strong. It has been a long journey but we don’t intend to stop. The NAP family is as strong as ever,” Bordoloi said.