O Chand (Oh! Moon)

O Chand (Oh! Moon)

The play, O Chand (Oh! Moon) has been developed with a tale of another middle class family in the context of political terror. The only earning source of the family, Atri, a teacher by profession, a nature lover, got victimized in the altercation between the State and the political extremists. He was an affectionate son of a visually impaired woman, a caring husband, a father of an adorable daughter. His romance for the nature, thirst for drinking to the drag the beauty of flora and fauna had been driven him from hills to the coastal fronts of the country. The aroma of happy ambience of the family, which includes music of nature, the tune and voice of his beloved mother, the flavor of the religious sacraments at the full-moon night, had haunted him since his very childhood. He felt the irresistible affinity towards the beauty of nocturnal blue of full-moon night — the affinity which ultimately pulled him to the battlefield in the Left Wing Extremism affected area. Based on a misperception he got abducted by the so called revolutionist guerrillas. A rebel by nature against the social and economic injustice he stood erect against the ideology of the political extremists, who declared war against the State power. His fatal end brutally affected his family. The play, based on a real life incident, raised the concern of adverse impact of such civil war at the micro level of the society. 

RAI in "O Chand"

Director’s Note

The strategy of using ‘Terror’ as the fundamental weapon for regulating the opinions of civil society has effectively been adopted by the political activists. After the naxalite movement of the seventy’s decade of last century, political terror in West Bengal has prominently been surfaced with the emergence of Left Wing Extremism in the southern part of the State. It is quite evident in parliamentary democracy thatthe political parties, irrespective of their colours, have frequently been utilised ‘terror mechanism’ to achieve their objectives. The goal of political violence is for one group to gain political power over another. The sympathizers in support of the political revolutionists try to justify the so-called socio-political terror as the struggle of marginalized people for their utter survival— they chose violence after long deliberation, because they felt they had no choice. But what about the political terrors created by the so-called non-marginalized groups?

However, the common people,the society as a whole, especially the poor and middle class families are most the vulnerable and are at stake due to the effects of such Political violence.They are the ultimate sufferers. According to a source of information, a total of 6510 persons died due to Left wing extremism in India during 2005 to 2014, of which 2688 are civilians. Death is the most obvious and permanent form of separation. Separation from the other family members, separation from the other associates, — separation that can ruin the entire family infrastructure. In the context of long prevailing political unrest situation in West Bengal we are witnessing plenty of cases of similar separations regularly from their families, friends and other associates just because of political violence. In this context, the play ‘O Chand’ has a tremendous social relevance today.

CREDIT :

Production : NANDIPAT

Play : Debotosh Das

Scenic Design : Sandip Suman Bhattacharya

Lighting Scheme : Badal Das

Music Editing : Swapan Bandyopadhyay

Make-up : Tapan Chakraborty

Costume : Pintu Das

Sound Operation : Himangshu Pal

Light Operation : Deepak Dev

Kirtan Recital : Srija Chakraborty

Voice : Anjan Roy CHowdhury

Music Scheme &

Directed by : Saumitra Poddar 

A SCENE FROM "O CHAND"

A SCENE FROM "O CHAND"

CAST :

Atri : Saumitra Poddar

Aditi : Monalisa Chatterjee

Rai : Kinkini Maity

Mother : Sarbani Bhattacharya

Abbas : Biplab Naha Biswas

Sunanda : Sanjay Das

Rahul : Bikashkali Ghosh

Chandi Da :  Sandip Suman Bhattacharya

Tiger : Shyamal Chakraborty

Kartik : Anjan Roy Chowdhury

Commander : Partha Pratim Das

Rebel : Triguna Shankar Manna

Guerrillas : Saikat Bhattacharya,

Bikashkali Ghosh, Moumita Ghosh, Asish Saha,

Manojit Dey, Sukhendu Prasad Bangal