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Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee

Where have the small villages gone?

Political commentator Mohan Guruswamy has recently written what we have been witnessing in Odisha for a long time now: small villages are fast disappearing.

“Data from the Census of India show between 2001 and 2011, villages with population of less than 1,000 have sharply declined across all states. People have moved to larger villages, pretty much as urban people move to more connected colonies in search of better jobs and education opportunities.

The number of uninhabited villages in India was 45,000 in the 2001 Census. That number has risen, though the 2011 Census does not provide precise numbers. It instead shows that of the nearly 640,000 villages it had counted, over 13 per cent or 82,000, had a population size of less than 200 each.

Less than one per cent of the rural population lives in these villages and many of them are likely to fall off the inhabited map by the time the next census comes around”.

Why is this happening? Major reasons are: livelihood issues, more opportunity to earn, better living condition, opportunity for education for children, and medical facilities.

As small villages are deserted, big villages are not necessarily getting bigger, as there is migration from those villages to nearby towns and from towns to big cities. The infrastructure of big cities is unable to cope with the migrating population leading to several problems.

Steps must be taken to a. stem the migration, b. improve the infrastructure of big cities and c. create new cities with proper planning for future expansion.

World Theatre Day

World Theatre Day is celebrated annually on the 27th of March across the world in many countries.  It was created in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute (ITI), an international non-governmental organization, founded in 1948 by UNESCO. Various national and international theatre events are organized to mark the occasion, to draw attention to theatre and international harmony. It is celebrated in India too by several theatre groups and cultural organisations.

Each year an outstanding theatre personality or a person outstanding in heart and spirit from another field is invited to share his or her reflections on theatre and international harmony. What is known as the International Message is translated into more than 20 languages, read for tens of thousands of spectators before performances in theatres throughout the world. It is also printed in hundreds of daily newspapers and broadcast in several radio and television stations across the continents.

The 2016 World Theatre Day Message Author is Anatoli Vassiliev, an internationally acclaimed theatre director and professor of Russian Theatre. He is the founder of the Moscow Theatre School of Dramatic Arts initially located on Povarskaia road, then relocated in a new building on Sretenka road. It is an architecturally original space, conceived according to Vassiliev's plans for the purposes of theatrical research to which it is dedicated. Here is an excerpt of his message:

“Do we need theatre?

That is the question thousands of professionals disappointed in theatre and millions of people who are tired of it are asking themselves.

What do we need it for?

In those years when the scene is so insignificant in comparison with the city squares and state lands, where the authentic tragedies of real life are being played.

What is it to us?

Gold-plated galleries and balconies in the theatre halls, velvet armchairs, dirty stage wings, well-polished actors' voices, - or vice versa, something that might look apparently different: black boxes, stained with mud and blood, with a bunch of rabid naked bodies inside.

What is it able to tell us?

Everything!

Theatre can tell us everything.

How the gods dwell in heaven, and how prisoners languish in forgotten caves underground, and how passion can elevate us, and how love can ruin, and how no-one needs a good person in this world, and how deception reigns, and how people live in apartments, while children wither in refugee camps, and how they all have to return back to the desert, and how day after day we are forced to part with our beloveds, - theatre can tell everything.

The theatre has always been and it will remain forever.

And now, in those last fifty or seventy years, it is particularly necessary. Because if you take a look at all the public arts, you can immediately see that only theatre is giving us - a word from mouth to mouth, a glance from eye to eye, a gesture from hand to hand, and from body to body. It does not need any intermediary to work among human beings - it constitutes the most transparent side of light, it does not belong to either south, or north, or east, or west - oh no, it is the essence of light itself, shining from all four corners of the world, immediately recognizable by any person, whether hostile or friendly towards it.

And we need theatre that always remains different, we need theatre of many different kinds.

Still, I think that among all possible forms and shapes of theatre its archaic forms will now prove to be mostly in demand. Theatre of ritual forms should not be artificially opposed to that of “civilized” nations. Secular culture is now being more and more emasculated, so-called "cultural information" gradually replaces and pushes out simple entities, as well as our hope of eventually meeting them one day.

But I can see it clearly now: theatre is opening its doors widely. Free admission for all and everybody.

To hell with gadgets and computers - just go to the theatre, occupy whole rows in the stalls and in the galleries, listen to the word and look at living images! - it is theatre in front of you, do not neglect it and do not miss a chance to participate in it - perhaps the most precious chance we share in our vain and hurried lives.

We need every kind of theatre.

There is only one theatre which is surely not needed by anyone - I mean a theatre of political games, a theatre of a political "mousetraps", a theatre of politicians, a futile theatre of politics. What we certainly do not need is a theatre of daily terror - whether individual or collective, what we do not need is the theatre of corpses and blood on the streets and squares, in the capitals or in the provinces, a phony theatre of clashes between religions or ethnic groups...”

Tailpiece: Holi

Nabaghana's message on World Water Day:
Save water, drink beer.

Nabaghana's message on Holi:
Save environment, play holi on whatsapp.

Posted in www.orissadiary.com 26 March 2016