The Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 was fought not only in the territory hitherto known as East Pakistan but also in West Bengal and the states bordering the war-torn terrain. Besides providing shelter to over a crore of refugees, India lent every logistical and military support to the Mukti Bahini, which fought tooth and nail for victory. A few recent productions staged in and around Calcutta strive to reconnect the loose strings of this camaraderie.
Baghajatin Alaap’s Agoon (picture) is an example. This Rakesh Ghosh play offers a rather romanticised vision of Dhaka during the peak of the war. A middle-class family offers shelter to a Bhowanipore-based Indian militant (played passionately by Rup Deb) who masterminds a series of guerilla attacks on Pakistan’s military bases in the central districts of Dhaka. How the family members — played effectively by Parthapratim Deb and Rupa Deb — overcome their initial reluctance to accept him and how the teenaged girl (Payel Sengupta) develops a camaraderie with the militant and his comrades form the crux of the narrative. Parthapratim directs Agoon with an eye for details, exploring the downstage to the fullest. Poulami Bose, playing the girl’s nymphomaniac aunt with gusto, was the surprise package.
If Agoon highlights the bonhomie between Bengalis on both sides of the Radcliffe Line, Ballygunge Bratyojon’s Nagorik shifts the crisis to the Bengali diaspora living on both sides of the Atlantic. Written by Sudipta Bhawmik, this drawing-room drama centres around the need to shelter a Bangladeshi blogger (played sensitively by Sumit Kumar Roy) who seeks political asylum in America. A couple of Indian origin welcomes him, but gets unnerved when bureaucratic hassles start showing. The citizenship status of the wife (played with sensibility by Piyali Basuchatterjee) complicates matters further. Swapan Biswas, himself playing an East Bengal refugee from the Partition, directs this loosely structured play with a melodramatic twist at the end.
Nagorik touches the raw nerve of strife-ridden contemporary Bangladesh but falls short of exploring the complex maze of anxieties that torment its sympathisers living overseas.