How would you react when you find a ladies purse lying unattended while alighting from an empty public bus? Handing it over to the bus conductor or depositing it at a nearby police station would have been responsible acts. Would you rather walk an extra mile, try to locate the owner yourself, eventually following the cue of a visiting card and an envelope with the same address and landing up at the destination mentioned on them?
That is exactly what Chittapriya (Bijoy Mukhopadhyay) does in Ballygunge Bratyojon’s Dahankaal (Age of Combustion). He encounters Satyapriya (Swapan Biswas) — a senior citizen living all by himself since his wife (Nancy) left him eight months back. Their only son (Soupayan Jana) lives independently and the married daughter with her in-laws. In what seems to be a serious effort to find out the owner of the ladies purse, Satyapriya rings up his estranged wife. The wife arrives within minutes and skeletons start tumbling out of the cupboard.
Arindam Sengupta penned this cracker of a drama two decades back; back then, letter-writing was not a lost art but a means to pour one’s heart out. Credit goes to Swapan Biswas, who edits the original with an eye for contemporaneity and directs it with minute attention to finer details. What ultimately emerges is an engaging drawing room drama that keeps you on the edge of the seat for a good 55 minutes without resorting to any sensationalism and guides you through the realities of the human situation in the 21st century. Sengupta packs so many punches within a short span and Biswas handles the multiple turns and twists with such finesse that Dahankaal ends on a jaw-dropping note.
Dahankaal premiered on June 5 this summer. This reviewer viewed it on August 14 at Tapan Theatre. Given its potential, it should go miles. Watch out for Biswas’s nuanced performance as the male lead. Assertive from start to finish, yet vulnerable at points, it is a masterclass in method acting. His performance was complemented by Mukhopadhyay’s apparent gullibility. Nancy’s natural tendency to explode at crucial moments was cleverly utilised by the director.
