We did meet BHAGAT SINGH and became part of his life... Capt Ahmed

We went to meet Bhagat Singh in Gagan Damama Bajyo, but during the 2 hours play we got to meet Sukhdev, Yashpal, Moin, Batukeshwar Dutt, Shiv Varma, Vidyavati, Kishen Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad & Yateendranath also...

Story revolves around Bhagat Singh's journey; from a regular college going youth, how he becomes Sardar Bhagat Singh and ends up being a Shaheed. 

How Bhagat Singh chooses not to be a regular youngster who is earning money, getting married but is all determined to set a fire in the hearts of youth, was well depicted.  

He was also having regular life as any normal youth.He was also witty, which is not know to many. He also had friendly moments and disputes with his colleagues. All this was represented quite well on stage.We did meet BHAGAT SINGH and became part of his life.

Written by Piyush Mishra, Gagan Damama Bajyo is an any reader's delight and daring to put it as a play needs some guts. Jay Jha, the director seems to have that. With about 40 actors cast, each playing prominent or multiple character, it needed some effort, and yes that effort was visible. 

The play began with a song... Raanjhna....well sung by Anurag. A contemporary dance was also happening. Why? Not understood. A girl was singing in pain. but why. Not understood. However Good singing by Aditi Kandpal. 

But my understanding doesn't matter as this set the stage for a musical. and I loved the three for doing justice to what they were asked to do. 

Then there was Jallianwala bagh incident depicted. Good thought of using the white sheet to cover all martyred and a lady emerging and talking to the audience. This Jallianwala bagh episode should have made the audience cry, at least give goosebumps.., but nothing happened. Such an important scene should have been nothing less than magical. Lights could have done wonders in this scene. However Surabhi as the Sikhnee, was impressive and so was Nitesh Upadhyay. 

Markand meets Batukeshwar Dutt and the story starts unfolding. Flash back was shown effectively.  But who is Markand? where does he come from? It was not clearly explained. He was shown as a part of Bhagat Singh's friend circle who aspired to become a Civil Servant. Markand remained as youthful as he was in 1933 even in 1965 and in 1995. Whereas Shiv Varma & Batuknath have grown old. However Utkarsh as Markand, Kedar & Subhash Gupta as Shiv Varma (young & old respectively) and Gunjan as Batukeshwar Dutt played their parts well. 

The train scene was well conceived but could have been executed better. While Chandrashekhar Azad on top of the train was moving in rhythm, the passengers body movements were not coordinated. The thumping of hands on legs to create train sound was a good experiment. Needed more coordination. But overall the scene was well created. 

Lights & fog... made the visual imapct

In the first half, the play was going good and was gripping but somehow second half slipped away. Narrative was having too many breaks and too many characters trying to convey the story. Spotlight was over used and was adding to the confusion. Junaid Bilva on lights did few experiments but more is expected from him. 

 Paritosh as Bhagat Singh was quite a look alike and he did try to follow the body postures of Bhagat Singh as per few of his pictures that are available. Prashant Sigh as Sukhdev stole  the show. Not even once he went out of the character. Khreash Raj as Azad was again a perfect pick and he animated well to bring out the poster look of Azad. Nikhil Madhekar as Rajguru has huge potential. He reminded me of Sadashiv Amrapurkar. Rajeev as Kishen Singh made an energetic entry. Vasant sagar as  Phanindranath ghosh was amazing. Sandeep Sancheti as British Officer on phone and judge was good. Siddarth Jain as Yateendranath also stood out. 

The play would not have been effective had the casting not been done right. Kudos to the casting director. To make such a play successful, Production plays an important role and the Production team under Shailja did a good job. 

Vasant sagar, Paritosh, Nitesh, Prashant Sigh in an intense scene

Few things that were an eyesore were the plastic chairs. Wish wooden chairs were organised. The impact would have been of different level. When Bhagat Singh throws the pamphlets of the notice in the meeting, the papers were thrown in the audience. It was impactful. But wish the paper used was similar to what was available in those days. Bhagat Singh Pagdi was new and too bright, always. It was dominating the scenes and was distracting.many a times.With no dress designer to take care of costume, the complete ensemble was still well coordinated.  The intentions behind the play were pure and the audience did get connected. Need to see Kissago shine even better in their forthcoming shows. Jay Jha deserves a round of applause for attempting such a historic play.

Something about the reviewer: #Capt Ahmed is a branding professional. He is actively involved in Theater & Films as an actor. He is also an ardent writer and pens Poetry & street plays.