A theatre group braves the Delhi heat and police to perform street plays that drive crowds to Jantar Mantar, the venue of Team Anna’s fast.

A street play named Bhrastachar

A theatre group braves the Delhi heat and police to perform street plays that drive crowds to Jantar Mantar, the venue of Team Anna’s fast.

It is 12.30pm on a Friday at the North Campus Metro Station in Delhi. A group of 40 youngsters wearing black kurtas and jeans emerges in the front of the crowd. Within seconds, the college students hurrying to catch the train are forced to lend their ears to the crescendo of the high decibel chorus of the theatre group called Asmita, which means identity. The play being acted out is called Bhrastachar (corruption) that echoes the philosophy of the Jan Lokpal movement initiated by the anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare. While Team Anna is challenging the might of the government just seven metro stations away from the North Campus, at Jantar Mantar, the young actors of the Asmita Group have the job of mobilising the young crowd studying at Delhi University. The play goes on for 30 minutes and every minute is spent convincing people that corruption affects everybody’s life and if not controlled today, it will destroy the nation. While actors perform, pamphlets on Jan Lokpal sneak into the crowds; some are casually thrown away, others are cautiously read. This doesn’t bother the actors though. “We pick up the abandoned pamphlets and hand it over to others. We do not focus on those who do not read us. We find courage from those who watch us play and read our pamphlets,” says Ashish Sejwal, one of the actors. This play has been performed at least 2,000 times since March last year, when the Anna movement started in different cities of India. Actors come from varied backgrounds. Shiv Kanungo, an advocate at the Supreme Court, has been a member of the theatre group for three years. Mausmi, who joined the group a few months ago, works part time at NIIT as a trainer. She rushes from office to join the group. Managing professional life and the passion for theatre is hard, but she is now used to it. The group follows a strict exercise regimen, “We have to make sure that our bodies and throats do not give up during the play,” says Abhishek Pandey, a senior member of the group. However, despite maintaining high fitness levels, there are days when the sweltering sun takes its toll on the bodies of the actors. But the team makes sure that the show is not interrupted. “The actors may fall down but the show must go on,” says Pandey. Asmita was established by Arvind Gaur in 1993, and is known for performing socio-political plays that include stage as well as street plays. Last year, Arvind Kejriwal approached Gaur to help create a stir among the youth on the issue of corruption. “The decision to join Anna’s movement was taken because we share his ideology,” says Gaur. While the Asmita Group has faced problems from the government in the past as well, last year two of its actors were arrested by the Delhi Police after the High Court bomb blast. “It was a government strategy to suppress us by implicating us in a serious issue like the bomb blast. Our actors were picked up from Connaught Place, because they had beards and were wearing black. So the police thought they were terrorists,” says a sarcastic Gaur. It was only after a protest by 250 people outside the Barakhamba Road Police Station that the two actors got released. Many a times the nukkad nataks are stopped midway by the cops and the actors are harassed. “We cannot fight with them. We just have to find out ways to keep our performance going. Sometimes, we have to stop our performance,” Gaur adds. Asmita’s plays end with a message that is delivered by Gaur himself or one of the actors, “We hope that a day would come when we will not have to perform a play on these issues. The purpose of our plays is to fight the socio-political ills of society, and the true reward for the play would be the eradication of that issue from the society.”