OUR CORRESPONDENT
ITANAGAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed delight at the Arunachal Rang Mahotsav, which is being celebrated in different parts of the country in line with the principles of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat. The Rang Mahotsav is being celebrated in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Guwahati. Sharing a tweet by Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu, Modi, in his official Twitter handle, said, “Arunachal Rang Mahotsav is more than just a programme; it’s a celebration of Arunachal Pradesh’s rich cultural tapestry. It aligns with the principles of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.” “Good to see this programme being held in different parts of India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Guwahati,” Modi said in another tweet.
The four-day theatre festival, in its final stages, commenced at the Srimanta Sankardeva International Auditorium in Guwahati on Tuesday. With the aim of showcasing Arunachal’s rich history, unknown to the world, through drama, four plays are scheduled to be performed. Earlier, the four-day festival was held in Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata on July 18.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the festival at Guwahati, Chief Minister Pema Khandu hailed the initiative under the leadership of Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein and said that the festival with its four plays, directed by National School of Drama (NSD) alumni and presently an Assistant Professor in the reputed institute Riken Ngomle, will showcase to the world the state’s transformation from the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) era to contemporary times. “When I first saw ‘Arunachal Ek Safarnama’ at Itanagar, I was spellbound. I didn’t know that our state had such a rich history. For lack of proper documentation, our rich history remains unknown to the world. Even we, the natives, are unaware of important historical events that occurred in our land,” he said. He termed the festival, held across four major cities in the country, a sincere initiative of the state government to tell the world about the rich history of Arunachal Pradesh.
Congratulating the theatre team put together by Ngomle for successfully performing in the four cities, Khandu said that the youths of Arunachal Pradesh and the North East are super talented but need platforms to explore and expose them. He informed that the state government is in touch with NSD to collaborate in honing the skills of local youths and providing them with proper platforms to explore. The play, Chowpha-Plang-Lu, was performed on Tuesday and revolves around the history of the state in 1839, when it became the harbinger for the revolution that was to come almost two decades later on the Indian mainland, which came to be known as the first Indian Independence movement.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma later joined the performance in the presence of Khandu, Mein, MLA Nyamar Karbak, eminent theatre personality Dulal Roy, Srimanta Sankardeva Kalakshetra Society Secretary Sudarshan Thakur, and others.
Also Watch: