After Tasher Desh and Valmiki Pratibha, prisoners to stage Ashoka The Great

Santanu Saraswati
Ashoka The Great had spread the Universal and timeless message of ahimsa—from across the borders that once brought pilgrims to this part of Himalayan Valley and embraced Buddhism before the birth of Christ.

It may sound strange, but forty prisoners of Presidency correctional home, however, will take the whole auditorium back to 304 BC through time machine—just after few months—staging the one-act play, Ashoka The Great—to spread the message of ahimsa once again.

Why the prisoners? —“ It is said that after the battle of Kalinga was over, Emperor Ashoka went on a tour of the city. He could see nothing except burnt houses and scattered corpses. This was the first time in his life that Emperor Ashoka realized the consequences of wars and battles. It is said that even after he had returned to Pataliputra, the scenes he saw in Kalinga kept haunting him. Even his queen, Devi, who was a Buddhist, left him after seeing the brutality at Kalinga. It was during this time that he embraced Buddhism under the Brahmin Buddhist sages, Radhaswami and Manjushri. After adopting Buddhism, Ashoka started propagating its principles throughout the world, even as far as ancient Rome and Egypt.
In fact, he can be credited with making the first serious attempt to develop a Buddhist policy. So why not the prisoners? I think people who are behind the four walls of the prison cells will be the best to stage this one-act drama—just to spread the message of peace, once again,” additional director general of police and inspector general of police (state correctional services) B D Sharma, told Hindustan Times.

These prisoners, according to Sharma, already have the credit of staging Tasher Desh and Valmiki Pratibha successfully, are chosen to stage this show, but in Hindi or English. “Even though both Tasher Desh and Valmiki Pratibha got accolades from across the state, we have decided to stage Ashoka The Great either in Hindi or in English just to make the performance more acceptable to the audience. And this would be the first performance of prison-inmates in language other than their mother tongue,” the ADGP & IG (prison), said.

The state correctional home services department has tied up with the Hindi departments of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi, and University of Calcutta along with the Mahabodhi Society, Kolkata to carry out the entire research work before writing down the script of the one-act play. “The work of writing the final script is nearing completion. It is taking little time as we are crosschecking it hundred times to be factually correct,” Sharma added.

As the performers are not well conversant either in Hindi or English, the entire dialogue will be made on the background, and the dialogues of Ashoka The Great will be read none other than by the ADGP & IG (prison) B D Sharma. The department is not in favour of changing the entire team of performers who performed earlier in Tasher Desh and Valmiki Pratibha, though inclusion of very few is not ruled out.

Sharma presently is working hard to make everything perfect before announcing the first date of the show. But this time, if Rabindra Sadan will be the venue of the first show, the second show will be held in New Delhi, as Sharma dream to give this show an international colour. “We might not have stars like Shahrukh Khan as Ashoka or Kareena Kapoor as Kaurwaki, a princess of Kalinga, but our Ashoka The Great will be no less popular than Santosh Sivan’s film,” Sharma said with smiles on his face. EOM
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