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| Balwant Thakur, a renowned theatre personality | | |
Sandeep Bhat
Balwant Thakur, a household name and renowned dramatist, has created a niche not only for himself but also for the state of Jammu and Kashmir by presenting and directing numerous plays that have been acclaimed both nationally and internationally. He has left an indelible mark on the horizons of the country’s cultural field in general and Jammu and Kashmir in particular. He is credited to have directed and produced some of the vital plays which have been screened a score of times, on the repeated demand of the public.
Balwant Thakur born on December 25, 1960 in a hilly village, Bakral, Tehsil Reasi, of J&K which is a repository of traditional performing arts, had a great passion of signing and dancing right from his child hood. His father being a patron of traditional performers represented the state at many national events and inspired young artists
After completing his primary education in his village, Balwant shifted to Jyotipuram (Reasi) town where he studied upto 12th standard. Jyotipuram being a metropolitan town gave him a diverse cultural exposure in his formative years by which he developed leadership qualities. He joined an evening group and started assisting them in all their allied jobs including, publicity, back-stage work, house management etc., At such a tender age he had developed the confidence to form a group with the help of his six friends ‘Seven Stars’ and staged plays like ‘Sabhya Saanp’ and ‘Kanyadaan’. Later he shifted to Jammu and graduated in Business Management and Economics from MAM College. During this period he started writing for Radio Kashmir, Jammu and presented talks, short stories, poetry, and short plays on its Yuva-vani service. He continued acting, directing and writing plays for the inter-college competitions and despite his ultimate ambition to do post graduation in dramatics, he was forced to join LLB (professional) to fulfill his parental aspiration. Three years in the University turned out to be a turning point in his career where in quest of achieving excellence he strived hard, contributed in the renaissance and brought top honours for University of Jammu in Zonal and National events.
To avoid unnecessary interference and to have the creative liberty he with the help of his theatre colleagues established ‘Natrang’ in 1983. In the first year of its inception, Natrang amazed everyone by winning the State Academy award for best production ‘Chauraha’ directed by him. Within a short span of time, he was able to strengthen Natrang by producing and directing successful plays like ‘Neeli Jheel’ ‘Nanhen Kandhey Nanhen Pair’ ‘Singhasan Khali Hai’ and ‘Rang Nagri’. In 1984-85 he wrote two plays ‘Ek Sangharsh Ka Ant’ and ‘Yeh Laash Kiski Hai’, the later won the best short play award in several All-India play competitions.
With a view to extend the horizon of Natrang’s work and also to introduce young crop of actors, he started two new annual projects ‘Theatre Camp’ for freshers in 1989 and Children’s Summer school in 1990. Theatre Camp is used to be a residential production oriented training program and brought much successful plays like Badal Sarcar’s ‘Bhoma’ ‘Ghera’ based on Brecht’s ‘Caucasian Chalk Circle’ and Mahesh Elkunchwar’s ‘Holi’. He made extensive travel outside India and held presentations in Festival of India, at Thailand, Global Fair at Dubai, India Festival at Sharjah, Asia-pacific festival at Germany, Asian theatre meet at (Singapore) Eastern World Tourism meet at Malaysia and also presented papers at Oxford, London, Brighton, Copenhagen and Moscow. He also had the occasion to visit Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford, Globe Theatre Compay, London and House of World Cultures, Berlin.
At present in Jammu Abhinav’s Theatre, Natrang have started 15 days long theatre festival which will be the first theatre festival in India where 17 plays will be presented at a stretch and this will be the record. Natrang Jammu has the mission to become the ultimate destination of artists, writers, intellectuals and art lovers.
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