‘Ghat Ghat Mein Panchi Bolta Hai‘: The play opens with a song and dance moves. Due to poor audio quality and a few lengthy dance moves, the drama makes you yawn.
‘Ghat Ghat Mein Panchi Bolta Hai‘: The play opens with a song and dance moves. Soon after that, Sandip Soparrkar, a renowned dancer and choreographer, introduces all the characters, and the play begins with each character’s agony, confessions, pain, and mixed emotions. It is a brutally hard-hitting drama on gender-based violence. Each character tells their side of the story and how their relationship with the one-man set-in chains the fall of the axiomatic mound of cards. ‘Ghat Ghat Mein Panchi Bolta Hai‘ is a collection of letters between two families, three generations, and seven characters. They are entangled in each other’s lives. Most of the women may not confess, but in their lifetimes, they are abused, put on trial, attacked, and deprived, but they keep silent just to pretend everything is alright. They fear being a social so-called shame. This play fearlessly confronts the disturbing realities of violence and abuse in our homes. Silence often dominates cruel realism, even in the most educated and fortunate families. With unwavering honesty, the play aims to question this silence and denial of people.
Sandip Soparrkar was charming, graceful in his dance steps and composed in his acting. The first time I saw him live, to my surprise, he was just amazing in his performance; rather, the entire story revolves around him. Other actors, Taranjit Kaur, Priyasha Bhardwaj, Mahima Mishra, Padma Damodaran, and Swaroopa Ghosh, were good in their given roles.
Mahima Mishra was the show stopper and she stole the show. She played the role of Soparrkar’s daughter. She represented today’s young generation. She knows how to modulate her voice; she was very good at toeing the emotions from one expression to another. She is very innocent looking yet modern and very commanding in her speech, which brings reasoning. She is the fresh face in the theatre.
While watching the play, you go on an emotional roller-coaster ride. You would be numb to see the trauma of paedophilia and the stigma surrounding it, and the more incongruously repressed it is, the more it reveals its ugly head, destroying even more lives. Kumud, Priyasha Bhardwaj’s cuddling pillow and innocently accepting child sexual abuse because she refuses to believe she’s a victim were heartbreaking sights. The play deals with questions of underage consent, morality, and the burden of shame. At the same time, it unseats the assumptions of those sitting on the high seat by exposing the common emotions that can force one to act in the way these characters did.
This drama is presented by Sakshi, an NGO headquartered in New Delhi, that focuses on gender and equality. Directed by Smita Bharti, the show presents different shades of close relationships, which are very. The choreography by Ashutosh Arya could have been better.
‘Ghat Ghat Mein Panchi Bolta Hai‘ is a must-watch because the subject they chose is a universal issue. That needs to be discussed openly. The play delves into the thoughtful impact of generational suffering, the destruction of societal values, and the burden of collective denial. ‘Ghat Ghat Mein Panchi Bolta Hai‘ serves as a resounding wake-up call, urging audiences to confront the grave consequences of a society that chooses to avert its gaze from uncomfortable truths.
