Art Cross Theatre Main, a Bengaluru-based theatre troupe will be presenting ‘Manushyata,’ a collection of poems by the likes of Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Gulzar and others online on July 31.
Sumit Acharya, co-founder and artistic director of Art Cross Theatre Main says he was struck by the realisation of how far mankind had allowed their differences to overtake them while reading a poem by Maithili Sharan Gupt.
“The poem was titled, ‘Manushyata’ and as I read it, it dawned on me that we let biases of gender, caste, class and politics get in the way of peacefully co-existing with each other,” says Sumit. “You can disagree with another person’s point of view without reverting to personal attacks, name calling and trolling. Unfortunately, that is how people deal with differences these days,” he adds.
Sumit began calling on others of the theatre fraternity and they came up with this initiative of presenting classic poetry in Hindi and Urdu in the hopes that it would help listeners reconnect with the basic tenets of civilisation.
Keeping in mind the prevalent social distancing norms, the poems selected for ‘Manushyata’ were recorded by individual artists and later collated. Bengaluru-based theatre actor and director Zafer Mohiuddin will be inaugurating the series on July 31 at 7 pm. Following the inaugural reading on July 31, Art Cross Theatre Main will continue to upload poems on all their social media handles, every second or third day for the next 20 days.
Art Cross Theatre Main was established in 2018 and ‘Manushyata’ will be streamed on YouTube as well as on Facebook @ArtCrossTheatreMain and on Instagram @artcrosstheatremain.