Chunky Pandey rehearses for Bombai Ka Babu; (left) Moon Moon Sen in a jatra palaIndrani Halder in Bangladesher Baghini and (below) Shakti Kapoor rehearses for Lokjayee Opera?s Pardesi Jamai

On a pitch-dark night somewhere in Bengal, a crowd of ten thousand sits huddled under the open sky, gaping at the ?glamour queen? who has come from far-off Tollywood to play a desi Cinderella. Tinsel town has no room left for her to play the heroine, but Tollywood?s loss is jatra?s gain.

Barring a few like Debasree Roy, who still feels film stars shouldn?t make themselves so accessible to the public, celluloid actors with spare time on their hands spend the winter months living out of a suitcase, roaming the interiors from Bengal to Jharkhand, Assam to Tripura.

The jatra juggernaut starts rolling Durga Puja onwards, and waiting in the wings are Tapas Pal, Satabdi Roy, Indrani Halder, Supriya Chowdhury, Dipankar De, Sreela Majumder, Nayana Das, Dolon Roy, Papiya Adhikary? The list goes on.

Star turn

What makes film stars turn to jatra is anybody?s guess. There?s more money in one jatra session ? in full swing from October to February ? than in months of doing TV serials and films. Plus, there?s the added sop of the spotlight being trained on on the star ? all the action happens around him/her.

?Tapas Pal and Satabdi Roy get to play heroes and heroines in jatra palas. This is so much better than playing a side character, say that of an elder brother, in a film. And the pay packet is much more than in serials,? says TV actor Surajit Banerjee, who has written the script for New Jatratirtha?s Tomari Apekshay Achhi, starring yesterday?s hero Santu Mukherjee.

?Money is definitely the prime factor,? agrees Satabdi, who is gearing up with Anandabashar Jatra Sanstha?s Kundeghare Rajkonya. ?One doesn?t need to work six months or one year at a stretch as in the case of mega serials or films. One needs to devote a maximum of two to three months. This time I will do 15 to 20 shows. My palas revolve around me and these are all essentially family dramas,? she adds.

?Why would I do a pala if I don?t have the central role?? asks Nayana, who is rarely seen on screen these days. Under the Anjali Opera banner, Nayana has a double role up her embroidered sleeves in O Kano Ato Sundari Holo.

Content counts

The filmi factor may help pull in the crowds, but actors attest that the script rules over glamour. ?People start hooting if the production is weak. So, one has to be well-equipped,? says Nayana, who has been in the circuit for the past two years. ?My pala is very difficult as I play twin sisters. We are working out the gap between the scenes involving the two roles.?

Quite a few actors give more than a passing thought to the script and production qualities. Indrani Halder, for instance, is ghost directing herself and her co-actors in Trinayani Opera?s Bhanumotir Khel.

Apart from selecting the story, monitoring the script and deciding on the cast, costume, music, lights, special effects and stunts, Indrani puts in over a month of rehearsal before the shows.

?Having worked in films, I think I have a better idea about what works with the village audience. And I started working on this pala from February,? says she.

Sentiment sells

Sentiment-laced family dramas, semi-thrillers or comedies rule the makeshift stage. Totally out of favour are mythological stories. So, even if Agragami has roped in Arun Govil to play Ram in the ?socio-mythological? Sitar Agnipariksha, the producers have decided to keep only a couple of scenes from the epic. ?Mythologicals don?t sell, so the content is mostly on present-day life,? says Agragami proprietor Goutam Nandy.

The jatra roster is chock-a-block with family dramas ? from film-maker Anjan Chowdhury writing a tearjerker to Supriya Chowdhury doing a saas-bahu saga.

?I write what village women like to see ? family dramas with lots of emotions. The script is almost the same as a film but I make it a bit more loud for jatra,? says Anjan Chowdhury, who has penned Tumie Bodhu Tumie Mata for daughter Chumki under Rajeshwari Opera.

Mumbai muscle

A trip from Mumbai to Midnapore sounds unlikely, but it makes business sense for the waning stars on the western shores. There have been Zeenat Aman and Chunky Pandey before. This year, there?s Shakti Kapoor, Asrani and Arun Govil.

Though the stakes are higher when men from Mumbai are involved, the operas which bring them down don?t expect these ?stars? to score on the performance front.

?The box office is guaranteed the moment Asrani takes the stage. Whether the audience will find anything to cheer in his performance is doubtful,? says a spokesperson for Lokanatya Opera, which is putting up the comedy Mama Bhagne, starring Asrani and Tapas Pal.

And years after Ramanand Sagar?s Ramayana, Arun Govil has enough celestial draw for Agragami to run a pala revolving around him. ?We did a market survey which showed that people still want to see him as Ram,? says Goutam Nandy. Govil has committed 72 shows in the districts, the Orissa-Bengal border, Jharkhand, Assam and Tripura.