SHONAR MEYE
 

Directed by Sanjoy Ganguly

 

 
  janasanskriti
 

 
 

This play was first performed in 1991 by Jana Sanskriti's CoordinationTeam. Since then it has been performed at least 1000 teams by various teams of Jana Sanskriti

   
 

Shonar Meye was a result of 5 years of intensive work in remote areas of the Sunderbans. The director's first hand experience of living with agricultural workers gave him an insight on the different aspects of their struggle for survival. The plight of women was a special area of concern. At this time he conducted theatre workshops with many groups of villagers. It was at these workshops that the play Shonar Meye was written – from the experiences shared by these people, their dilemmas, their oppressions and their daily challenges.

   
  The play is about the life of a girl – as a child, her journey into adulthood and her struggle with the challenges that lie in wait for her. Though it was written about almost 15 years ago, the universality of the theme – status of women – makes it an extremely relevant play even today. Performed in the round, with the innovative use of sticks and almost no other props and a liberal use of folk forms of Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand – Shonar Meye is an aesthetically pleasing and ideologically hard-hitting play.
 

 
  The play is in Bangla. However, our experience of performing in other parts of India and abroad tells us that language does not act as a barrier.