Chitta Singh staged on the fourth day of National Theatre Festival
2nd National Theatre Carnival
Jammu 19th of January, 2023:On the fourth day of the ongoing National Theatre Festival named 2nd Theatre Carnival, Samooh Theatre Jammu today presented the play Chitta Singh written, designed and directed by Ravindra Sharma. On the occasion Zabeer Ahmed Chief Scientist IIM Jammu was the Chief Guest on the occasion. Organized by Natraj Natya Kunj, cultural society Jammu (regd.) and supported by Ministry of Culture, Government of India, Indian Council for Cultural Relations J&K, Jammu & Kashmir Academy Of Art Culture & Languages, Punjab Sangeet Natak Akademi & Haryana Kala Parishad.
Today’s play is inspired from Fritz Karinthy’s “The Refund” which deals with an extraordinarily ludicrous situation. The main character in the play is CHITTA SINGH. He is forty years old. He could not get any employment and wherever he went the people told him that he is fit for nothing and nothing worthwhile he has learnt when he was studying. One day, somebody said, when you don’t know the silly thing that you have studied, you better go to your school and get your tuition fees back. CHITTA SINGH who was jobless and didn’t have any finance, this idea sounded something beneficial to him and so he went to the school where he studied once. When he asks for the refund of his tuition fees, the principal is shocked because after eighteen years he has come to the school. The principal is in a peculiar situation now and he calls for an urgent meeting with all other staff members. They decided to keep a re-examination for CHITTA SINGH and agreed that whatever answers he gives whether it is right or wrong they will prove him right. One by one each teacher questioned him and justified his wrong answer to be the correct one and they marked him excellent. Though CHITTA SINGH gives wrong answers and uses abusive words to each teacher, they don’t show their anger because they have to prove him as an excellent student to chuck him out. At least the mathematics master asks him a difficult question and an easy question. For the easy question he gives the wrong answer and the master gets angry and says that he has failed on his examination so he should be given his tuition fees back. The master says that we have decided to give you your tuition fees back and now can you tell us the exact amount which we have to give you. CHITTA SINGH without knowing that he is going to fall into their trap gives them the list of exact amounts. So the mathematics master says that was my difficult question to give the exact amount of your tuition fees for which you gave the right answer. Now he has proved excellent in the entire subject and they throw him out without allowing him to say anything further. The play shows the ability of the teachers to manage the situation and how they tackle CHITTA SINGH without spoiling the reputation of their school.
The actors who performed in this play were Ravinder Sharma as Chitta Singh, Sandeep Manhas as Principal, Rohit Bains as Receptionist, Jahanvi Sharma as Physics Teacher, Deepika Devi as Geography Teacher, Ajay Tamangh as History Teacher, Vinay Sharma as Math’s Teacher. Pankaj Sharma and Aditya Bharti designed the lights of the play while Shammi Dhamir did the make-up of artists. Akshita Sharma, Amrita Kour and Rajat Gupta helped in BackStage work of the play.
While addressing the audience Chief Guest Zabeer Ahmed underlined the efforts of Natraj Natya Kunj Jammu towards preserving and promoting art and culture and harnessing the local artists and bringing other states performing artists to J&K.
