Battling it out on stage

Drama Competition

The competition was organised by Bharata Yatra Kendra, Bangalore University and Karnataka Nataka Academy.

The day started with a play called Chitapata by Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain College, V V Puram, which dealt with the a scene from Ramayana where in Rama and Sita are back in Ayodhya celebrating their victory over Ravana. Sita was requested by a friend to paint the picture of Ravana and seeds of suspicion are sown in Rama's mind, slowly the rest of the story ensued.

This was followed by another play, Namma Ithihasa by ASC College in Vijayanagar. As the name suggests, the first half dealt with the history of the country, especially the state. The second part of the play dealt with the current affairs.

This had a lot of satirical songs, even a dash of humour, and video clippings from films.
Jagadeesh Jeela, one of the coordinators of the event, said that 17 colleges participated in the drama contest.

Many other events like debate, classical singing, essay writing, mime, classical and folk dance, painting, quiz and theatre singing were also organised.

The director of Namma Ithihasa, Satheesh J Hiremath, who also scripted and wrote the dialogues, said, “It doesn't matter who wins or loses since my main intention was to provoke questions in the minds of the audience by presenting many facts. We have been practising for the last two and a half months and I have seen the potential in the college students.”

One of the protagonist, Adarsh, a first year BCom student of ASC College said that he was participating for the first time and he considered the cast and crew as one huge family.  

Rahul, a member of the audience said, “I watched only the second play, Namma Ithihasa and I found it truly inspiring. It's based on reality and the actors, props, settings and lighting were extremely good. This is the first time that I saw the usage of video clippings in a play.”

The final result of the competition will be announced on October 26.