Ye Aurtain Bhi Kya Bla Hain
By Renu Kumar
Since its inception in 2007, Dhoop Chaaon Theatre Group has been
entertaining Atlanta community. Dhoop-Chaaon has established itself with the
reputation of bringing the contemporary issues with a touch of humor. This
group provides entertainment to all walks of people, including people who
have left their country and settled in their new home or people who are born
here, but desire to witness the culture and traditions they hear from their
parents/grandparents or read about it in the books. This year Dhoop Chaaon
is celebrating its 10th anniversary and this organization had evolved from
presenting small skits and drama to now creating small movies. Dhoop Chaaon
started with few members only and now has about 70 – 80 members. This group
has grown from the incubator of Emory White Hall to the Berkmar High School
to accommodate a much bigger crowd, where they are performing for the past 6
years. Dhoop Chaaon has about 50 original members who have helped the group
the very first year and they are still with the organization; whereas the
other members join and leave the group as their time commitment permit them.
Dhoop Chaaon show is run entirely by the volunteers and the financial
needs of the group are met through private donations. As the name suggests,
Dhoop Chaoon truly represents its name through its presentation of social
issues of our society in a very- dhoop (sunny) side, when the artists come
alive on the stage and put the stage on fire and audience responds equally
with their thunderous applaud and whistles. At the same time, chaoon (shady)
side of its shows forces us, the audience, think about our flaws and that
each of us has the power to change those very issues by recognizing them.
For Dhoop Chaaon, even sky is not the limit as it brings out the different
issues of our society. So far, this group has been producing skits and
dramas but last year, it produced two small movies. Mrs. Sandhya Bhagat,
Dhoop Chaaon’s founder/director, a talented and passionate person for Hindi
Literature, and its enthusiastic members bring out the social issues or
concepts of our society in a very entertaining way. Dhoop Chaaon has
produced two short films with the same motive as it has been doing for the
skits and dramas– some social issues. These films are based on real
incidents that are often observed in our society.
One of these short films is “Nat-Khat Rangeley” presented by our very
young generation. Nat-Khat Rangeley is about teaching Hindi to our children.
This issue becomes even more pressing when they visit their grand-parents
back home or vice versa (meaning when the grand-parents visit them here),
they cannot communicate with each other as they had only been in only
English speaking environment. To teach their children Hindi as well as their
culture Although volunteer teacher’s heart is at the right place, as they
are investing their time to teach Hindi to our young generation but they are
so used to speaking English that it becomes a habit to speak in English even
in Hindi School. It takes extra efforts to speak in Hindi. As a result, they
start speaking ‘HINGLISH’ meaning Hindi is taught in English. Script for
this movie “Nat-Khat Rangeley” is written by Sandhya Bhagat and it is
directed by Shankar Mahadevan. Anuj Jain has done the photography and
editing of this movie. Actors for this movie are: Akash Joshi, Advait
Shivram, Ananya Jain, Aneesh Agrawal, Shruti Mishra, Vedarsh Mishra. Anil
Bhagat is the production manager and Rachita Iyer assistant director. Satish
Dharmrajan and Shekar Narayan controlled the second camera to record the
movie.
The second short film is “Yeh Auratein Bhee Kya Bla Hain” is based on
another social issue that is seen very often in our society, where the life
of a women does not have much value particularly the value of
daughter-in-law for some mother-in-law. If one daughter-in-law dies, the
mother-in-law start thinking for another girl for their son right away. They
do not even wait to complete the rituals for the dead person before they
start looking for another bride for their son. This short film “Yeh Auratein
Bhii Kya Bla Hain” portrays this social issue. Again, the script for this
movie is written by Sandhya Bhagat and directed by Shankar Mahadevan.
Cast-member for this film are: Akanksha Jhurani, Anil Bhagat, Gurupdesh Bedi,
Jayesh Jhurani, Manjit Bedi, Mini Mehta, Nidhi Mishra Bajpai, Rita Kapahi,
Shree Vora, and Veena Katdare. Anuj Jain, Donna Wong, and Shekar Narayanan
did the photography for this film. Assistant directors are Anil Bhagat,
Jayesh Jhurani, . Editing is done by Shankar Mahadevan and music “Vaishnava
Jana to” is done by Shivali.
There were two viewing of these films- one was private and it was only for
the actors and their families and for the second viewing, open invitation
was sent out to all Dhoop Chaaon group and their families and friends. Both
movies were received very nicely by the public during the second viewing.
Mr. D.V. Singh from the Indian Consulate joined the crowd to the viewing the
films and was very impressed with the concepts and talents of our local
artists. Our society and community leaders lauded the concepts and
appreciated the details of the movie. Hopefully all this encouragement will
make Dhoop Chaaon to continue its efforts in producing the quality work and
entertain our society with local talents.
Please contact Dhoop.cahoon@gmail.com
for more information
