I try to portray the reality of life

Popular playwright-actor-director Sadhana Ahmed said that she always tries to portray the reality of life and contemporary socio-political context in her plays through the portrayal of diverse characters.

‘The immediate material reality and the truth of life differ from person to person. They are also not the same in societies across the world. These differences are responsible for diverse cultures and thought patterns. I try to identify various truths by creating characters in my plays and through the flow of life of those characters,’ Sadhana Ahmed told New Age and added, ‘The life structure that exists behind the social-political structure is what I try to capture.’

Sadhana Ahmed believes that it is also important how one approaches art and culture, why one traverse this arena and the spirit with which one is able to sustain one’s practice.

The playwright said that after watching a television drama in 1996, suddenly a thought arose in her mind that the quality of such dramas she was watching would not get worse if she tried her hand at writing one. Sadhana Ahmed has been an actress and she shared with New Age how she got involved in theatre and how her theatrical journey progressed.

‘I have acted in several stage plays written and directed by Professor Momtazuddin Ahmed and Aminur Rahman Mukul. And, after a long hiatus of 17 years, I have acted in Bibartan Jashore-produced and Yusuf Hasan Ark-directed play Bratya Ami Mantrahin, which I wrote,’ said Sadhana Ahmed, and hastened to add, ‘Although Bratya Ami Mantrahin’s main premise is love, it is rooted in humanism, and I have tried to generate a dialectical statement on life by simultaneously drawing from Fakir Lalon Shah and Rabindranath Tagore.’

Sadhana Ahmed portrayed the life of the deprived people of the Garo villages, namely Birishiri, Someshwari and Kalmakanda in the play Matbring. She had some specific reasons behind penning the play.

‘Matbring revolves around the life of the Garo community. My objective was to depict the oppressed through broader framework. While racism and the destruction of biodiversity go hand in hand, I felt compelled to focus on a Garo group called Mande,’ she said.

‘I wanted to show that personal problems are part and parcel of social problems, so I chose to tell the story through the love story of a Mande couple — Kanu and Mitti,’ the playwright added.

Another story of Sadhana Ahmed’s play titled Damer Mother revolves around a community of the devotees of Mother Pir. Besides, in her play Gangkumari she has portrayed the aftermath of the assassination of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

‘In the play Gangkumari, I have tried to capture the language of silence in the aftermath of the assassination of Bangabandhu portraying the handful of power-hungry people on the one hand and the oppressed majority who live in the rural hinterland of this riverine delta. One of them is Anjali, a fisherwoman, who wants to resist, even after losing everything. She represents the struggling people of Bengal where the life of the people in the grip of the hegemony of the ruling elite has been an eternal presence,’ Sadhana explained.

‘Gangkumari was published in book form in 2018 and then I moved on to my next project. I wrote the screenplay for a film requested by Fazlul Kabir Tuhin. The film received a government grant for the fiscal year 2019-2020,’ she added.

Besides, Kazi Nazrul University, Asansol included Sadhana Ahmed’s play titled Angshupat Upakhyan in its curriculum in 2019.

She also spoke about her current ventures.

‘I am currently working on the Bangla script of the Bangabandhu biopic alongside Atul Tiwari and Shama Zaidi. Renowned filmmaker Shyam Benegal is making the film. I thank prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her international affairs adviser Gowher Rizvi for giving me the opportunity,’ concluded Sadhana Ahmed.

[Originally published on the NewAge on March 20, 2021. Please follow the link to read the original conent.]