Virendra Narayan’s theatrical understanding is global: Speaker at the birth centenary seminar organized by Sahitya Akademi

Sahitya Akademi organised a seminar on the occasion of the birth centenary of Hindi playwright Virendra Narayan. The inaugural session of the seminar was presided over by theatre critic and former director of National School of Drama, Devendra Raj Ankur. The chief guest of this session was Hindi critic Jyotish Joshi and the special guest was theatre artist and head of NSD Rangmandal, Rajesh Singh. The welcome address was given by Sahitya Akademi secretary K Srinivas Rao. The introductory address was presented by Virendra Narayan’s son Vijay Narayan.
In his welcome address, the Secretary of the Akademi, K. Srinivas Rao said that it is always the endeavor of the Sahitya Akademi to honor the talent and knowledge of all those important litterateurs who have worked for the development of literature even in the remote areas of the country. Veerendra Narayan was also one such talented litterateur who wrote more than 20 plays and also did important work in the field of drama criticism and journalism.
In his presidential address, Devendra Raj Ankur discussed his book ‘Rangkarm’ and said that this book is very important in itself because till that time there was no book available to provide such comprehensive information about the backstage of theatre. Pointing to some aspects of his thinking, he said that he had said long ago that not only dialogue is necessary for a drama but it also needs to have poeticism. Referring to his detailed study of Jaishankar Gupta’s play ‘Skandagupta’, he said that no one has done such important work on a play till date. He said that now it is necessary to investigate why the Hindi society ignored him?
Jyotish Joshi, while sharing his views as the chief guest, said that Virendra Narayan’s understanding of theatre was global. The plays written by him are contemporary even today. He also underlined Virendra ji’s statement in which he taunts the traditional thinking by saying that the theatre itself should prepare for the play and not that the play should be written according to the theatre. He further said that we should bring forward this important concern of Virendra and work on it.
Special guest Rajesh Singh, while talking about the practical aspect of his plays, said that he was the first playwright who talked about connecting plays with rural concerns. He also told about the uniqueness of his book Rangkarm.
Narrating many interesting memories of Virendra Narayan, his son said that his tendency was to do maximum work with minimum money, which was very useful in the presentation of his plays. He also told about him writing a play as a prisoner during the freedom struggle and staging it there.
The second session was chaired by renowned journalist and theatre critic Ravindra Tripathi and Prakash Jha and Bina Narayan expressed their views. Prakash Jha shared his experiences of his theatre life in Madhubani and said that he learned a lot from the book Rangkarm written by him and is still learning. His daughter-in-law Bina Narayan shared memories of his family life and said that Babuji loved gardening, animals and children very much. He lived a successful and satisfied life. The chairman of the session Ravindra Tripathi said that no theatre is Indian but is global in its nature. Due to this wide scope of theatre, Virendra ji sold everything and went to London to study theatre. While writing his plays and translating, he also kept in mind how globalism can be given a local identity. Many members of Virendra Narayan’s family were present in the program. Theatre artists and playwrights were also present. The program was conducted by Devendra Kumar Devesh, Deputy Secretary of Sahitya Akademi.