Kafan – Kafan Chor by Munshi Premchand & Amin Kamil

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The Play & Director’s Note
In today’s world, while we claim that the nations have come closer to each other, this global convergence has also unleashed a strange trail of war, violence and up-rootedness, where the victor and the vanquished are caught in the same ritual of death. This death, physical or metaphorical, is cutting across national borders, faiths and cultures. Seeds of hatred are fodder for brutality, poverty, misery and hopelessness. Kafan – Kafan Chor has two great short stories, one of Munshi Premchand and the other of Amin Kamil (A renowned Kashmiri author). The performance takes an absurd tragic journey, through the contemporary helpless human condition, looking at the past and present, known and unknown forces, which create this landscape of death and destruction. The performance has also
taken poems from different lands, different poets, and poems by soldiers in the battlefield. Despite great scientific advancement, has mankind lost the basic value of being humane?

The Director
M. K. Raina is a well-known theatre luminary, who has been working in the field of theatre for the last three and a half decades, innovating, studying, analyzing, writing and teaching. He has worked extensively in both contemporary and traditional theatre in South Asia and has been instrumental in reviving the traditional folk theatre of Kashmir, Bhand Pather. He has been a visiting faculty of several national and international Institutions, such as National School of Drama, Central University of Hyderabad, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, University of Hawaii USA etc. He has been a fellow at the Stanford University, USA and a scholar-in-residence at the Jamia Millia Central
University, New Delhi. He is a well-known social and cultural activist and is a founder member of SAHMAT, a trust formed to promote communal harmony and social equality. He is also a trustee of the South Asia Foundation, India, and the Artistic Director of the theatre group, Prayog. He has also made documentaries and films for various national institutions and for national channels. For his long term contribution to theatre, he has received several awards including the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, Sahitya Kala Parishad Samman, Sanskriti Award and B. V. Karanth lifetime achievement award.

The Group
Three Arts Club is one of Delhi’s oldest theatre groups, founded in 1943. TAC enthralled and entertained its audiences for four decades (1943-1983). Former presidents Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Dr. Zakir Hussain, and former Prime Ministers Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and Shri Charan Singh, as well as theatre and film luminaries like Prithviraj Kapoor, Shobhana Samarth and Sunder graced its performances. The club also has the distinction of being one of the first groups to give a platform to women on the Delhi stage. Since it revival in 2008, Three Arts Club organizes annual theatre festivals and has to its credit production of 19 plays in various genres ranging from comedy to drama. TAC has made rapid strides in both the technical and artistic aspects of theatre, especially after its association with M.K. Raina. In June 2017 TAC organized a week- long workshop under his able guidance. Three
Arts Club also extends its activities to educational institutes with the aim of promoting histrionic skills among the new generation and has organized many inter-school theatre competitions. True to its original mission (TAC performed children’s theatre in the 1950s), the group provides a platform to school children in Delhi NCR to explore their creative side and stage their own productions.

Cast & Credits
On Stage : Avanish Pandey, Durgesh Kumar, Kriti V. Sharma, Mukul Singh, Nupur Jain, Pankaj Sharawat,
Sachin Srivastava, Shalini Singh, Vipan Kumar

Lights : Govind Yadav
Sound & Music : Rakesh Kumar Singh
Costumes : Kriti V. Sharma
Stage Manager : Shalini Singh
Back Stage : Avinash Singh, Nidhikant Pandey, Sanjeev Singh
Producer : Anuradha Dar
Hindi Translation of KafanChor : Asif Ali

Storywriters : Munshi Premchand & Amin Kamil
Director : M K Raina

Manohar Khushalani

Manohar Khushalani

Prof. Manohar Khushalani is a former Visiting Faculty at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi. The courses he taught were: Animation & Graphics, Non-Linear Editing for Film and Radio and Theatre Appreciation.  He has won a total of nine Excellence in Teaching awards for all the courses he has taught at IIITD Earlier he retired from Government of India as Director Environment Management, Central Water Commission and held many senior positions in the Government Based on a Belief that Culture and Environment are the two keys to global sustainability , Manohar Khushalani has launched two portals: A Portal on Environment and Water called One Vorld at url: www.onevorld.org and two Ezines on Culture called Stage Buzz at url: www.stagebuzz.in He has taught extensively in varied subjects such as Dam Safety, Instrumentation, CAD, IT, Animation, Theatre, Newspaper Editing. He has conducted Courses on Environment Management, Water Shed Development, Team Building and Personality Development. He was an Expert Member of Prasar Bharti’s Committee for Grading & Short listing Films for Telecast on all channels of Doordarshan.  He is a Radio Anchor for All India Radio and has moderated several programs for the Rajdhani Channel He is a well-known Theatre Actor/Director and Critic, has been involved in theatre since 1977. He has worked as an actor in over 50 plays with almost every leading director/Actor in the Country including Badal Sircar, Feisal Alkazi, Amal Allana, M.K. Raina, Anuradha Kapoor, Maya Rao, Manohar Singh, Prasanna, Rati Bartholomew and Sushmita Mukherji. He has been active in the social sector as a street theatre activist. As a member of Workshop Theatre, Theatre Union and Prayog, Khushalani has participated in street plays taking up major social issues such as dowry, bride burning, Sati, banned medicinal drugs and communalism. Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Can’t Pay Won’t Pay, both directed by him, received rave notices from critics and audiences alike. Other plays directed by him include Badal Sircar’s, Sagina Mahato and Boris Vian’s Empire Builders for Ruchika Theatre Group. Khushalani has also acted in a few films such as Sudhir Mishra's Hazaron Khwaishen Aisi , Shoojit Sircar’s Madras Café and Pradeep Krishan's Annie Gives Those Ones. He is an Animator & Graphics Designer and has directed a number of documentaries. He also held a number of Honorary positions and was President of North India Films Association, He was the Chairman of  Jury for UGC CEC Educational Films Competition and has been on their Preview Committee since last many years. He was on the preview committee of Door Darshan Channel 3, was a visiting Professor at National School of Drama, New Delhi, and Film & Television Institute of India, Pune, AJKMCRR, Jamia Milia Islamia and Professor in Media at FICT, Delhi  He has judged a large number of Drama Competitions and conducted a number of Theatre / Management Games Workshops with Institutions such as AIIMS, NTPC, CWPRS, NWA, Karve Nari Prakshishan Sansthan, FICT, IIT, MAMC, Gargi College, KNC, Tagore International School and Vivekananda School. He is a Theatre Critic for IIC Diary, has also been a Columnist with Midday and Pioneer Daily and wrote Column's Called Culture Cocktail and Footlights Respectively. He was also the Guest Editor for an issue on Folk Theatre of ICCR Journal Horizons. He has written for Times of Indian, Hindustan Times, Blitz, Hard News, Hindu Business Line, Theatre India & Art Times. He has designed dams and hydraulic structures for the Government. He is a programmer and has developed Engineering design software in Fortran. He is a co-author of Irrigation Practice & Design (Vol 1 to5 - 1500 pages) published by Oxford & IBH and sponsored by National Book Trust. He has been a Director, Environment and Sociology, at the National Water Academy, Khadakwasla and Director, Environment Management Directorate, Central Water Commission and Member Secretary, National Environmental Monitoring Committee for River Valley Projects. He was also Director of Instrumentation Directorate in the Dam Safety Organisation. He was Chief General Manager and Head of Water Resources at Scott Wilson and is an accredited consultant with numerous other organizations He is a Delhi Public School, BITS Pilani, IIT Delhi and FTI Pune Alumini. He was also the President of BITS Pilani Alumni Association, Pune.

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