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An August tribute

This month will see the revival of the once famous Punjabi Opera, 'Chann Badlaan Daa', to acknowledge its creator, Sheila Bhatia. Heena Khandelwal reports

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Sheila Bhatia, (Right) stills from her play Chann Badlaan Daa
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At a household in Punjab, a lady is visibly upset that her husband is migrating to another city to earn a livelihood. Next door, a woman is tired of listening to her mother-in-law complaining. In another house nearby, everybody is celebrating the birth of a child. These narratives are folklores from the Punjab that was undivided, were put together as an opera titled 'Chann Badlaan Daa' five decades ago by renowned playwright and theatre personality, Sheila Bhatia, who passed away in 2008. As a tribute to Bhatia, a Delhi-based theatre group Tamasha, comprising of the artistes who worked with Bhatia, has come forward to recreate the opera 50 years after it was staged for the first time.

'Chann Badlaan Daa' is a form of a musical collage that delves into the diverse heritage of Punjab and presents its folklore. It is among Bhatia's popular work that received huge laurels and saw around 150 shows, says the well-known Punjabi singer Madan Bala Sindhu, who is recreating the opera. "We are reviving it, but keeping most elements intact including the introduction commentary, which is in verse form. There are new songs and some new performers too," says 80-year-old Sindhu, who started work with Bhatia with this opera and played a lead in all her plays and operas for years.

Born in Sialkot (Pakistan), Bhatia started her career as a mathematics teacher and was involved in India's freedom struggle. She moved to India post the Partition and joined the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), a group aimed at bringing cultural awakening among people through folk music and theatre. Later, she started her own repertory company, Delhi Art Theatre, in 1976.

Remembering Bhatia, one of her students and the co-founder of Tamasha, Nirupama Verma says, "Most of us (artists of the opera) started our career with Delhi Art Theatre and some like Madan Bala Sindhu and Lalit Nagpal had an association with her long before this when she was working with the theatre group. She would teach us and we would also perform in her plays and operas." But the first play that she did was Call of the Valley in 1951 after she was invited to perform it by the Government of Kashmir and it was her music that led to operas like 'Heer Ranjha' and 'Prithviraj Kapoor' in the subsequent years. Bhatia was also a founding member of National School of Drama and headed the acting department until her retirement in 1976.

Interestingly, around six years ago, the theatre group made its first effort to present 'Chann Badlaan Daa', but it was limited to a niche audience.

Chann Badlaan Daa will be performed at India Habitat Centre on Aug 5 and 6 at 7.30pm

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