Date: 08 April
Venue: National School of Drama

All good things must come to an end they say. The 51 days long theatre extravaganza – the 8th Theatre Olympics dropped curtains last evening. Theatre Olympics is held every 4 years and this year it was hosted by National School of Drama under the aegis of Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

The last 51 days saw about 600 performances being held at multiple venues in New Delhi as well as 17 other cities in India. The list of performances was mind boggling. The sheer diversity included theatre of course as well as music, dance and folk art forms from India and various parts of the globe. In addition, workshops, symposiums, discussions and master classes were held round the clock.

We had the good fortune of collaborating in this landmark event. In the course of the festival, we enjoyed watching plays in English, Hindi, Bangla and some other Indian and foreign languages. Some of the plays were non verbal and yet spoke out loud. Consequently, there was always an element of learning in whatever we watched. No wonder theatre has been a powerful medium of enjoyment since about 500 BCE in India!

In addition to theatre, the National School of Drama premises had a festival ambience on their grounds. Fairy lights, craft and art stalls as well as the ambient food court helped maintaining the mood. We would see people discussing theatre over paratha and endless cups of tea till the lights were switched off and they were made to leave.

To end the Theatre Olympics in style, a grand closing ceremony was held in Mumbai. We watched the closing of the New Delhi chapter of this festival with the play “The Brink  A Ritual Of Bad Sounds” from USA. It was an abstract and very NSD style.

Rarely do we get to see 51 days of such histrionic prowess anywhere in the world. It was not only a dream come true but we were also a little bit jittery as to how could such a long event turn out. Fortunately, it was deftly handled – few hitches – and all went well.

We are glad to have collaborated as part of the 8th Theatre Olympics. We are anyway big fans of Bharat Rang Mahotsav the annual theatre festival of National School of Drama. This year it was merged with Theatre Olympics. However from the next year this is going to be the annual 21 days Bharat Rang Mahotsav again. Oh, at this point we can’t wait for that. Meanwhile glad that India has the 8th Theatre Olympics in her kitty.