Play ‘Iesar Baagi '

The actors have poured their heart and soul into preparing for and bringing this play to reality even in lockdown. It took them 5-10 months of hard work and dedication which is much acknowledged and appreciated. With the help of IISU theatrical society, the play was screened on Zoom which fulfilled the necessity of entertainment and kept the audience in complete awe.

PLOT SUMMARY

"Oesar Baagi" is one of the great tragedies written by Sophocles. It is a Hindi adaptation of "Oedipus Rex" which has been woven into the world of Chambal and Beehro gardeners. (This story is based on the time of 1955-85, when the dread of the bandits or rebels who settled in Chambal and its ravines was at its peak. All the surrounding villages used to take awe from them.)  The main character of this story is "Oesar Singh" who is the leader of the gang. The job of this gang of rebels is to eliminate discrimination in the name of caste in Dhaulpur, Bhind, Gwalior, Morena and nearby villages and eliminate the Thakurs who persecute the poor or small castes.  In the year 1985, there has been an accident. Now there is chaos in the gardens. Troubled, the entire gang pleads with Oesar to do something. He does not understand anything himself. So the gang sends "Baagi Lakhan Chamar" to worship in the temple of Mai, and to get the answer from "Bhura Baba".

On the other hand, Bhura says, "The killer is the one who killed Vikram". When Lakhan comes back and tells this to the gang, Oesar starts searching for Vikram's killer and invites Bhura in the ravines.  Baba comes and sees Oesar’s future, but refuses to tell the same. Even after asking repeatedly, Oesar becomes furious and suspects a conspiracy by Lakhan to become a gang leader. Baba, hearing this, gets angry and tells the truth that "The root of all this is Oesar Singh and he is the one who killed Vikram." Oesar gets worried and orders to call Kaailu Mallah, an eyewitness to Vikram's death. Seeing her husband worried, Jamna tells him that this Baba's talk is all hypocrisy as his predictions had been proven false in Jamna's life. But Oesar says "how Bhura Baba has played a big part in his life too - because of what Oesar dreamt at night, Bhura had said that he would kill his father Bhanwar Singh and marry ‘his mother’ Devi ". After hearing this, all the Thakurs of the village put a soot on his face and called him slanderous and removed him from the village.

A shepherd, Gunaya, brings the news that Oesar Singh's father, "Bhanwar Singh", has died of old age. He is encouraged to hear that his prediction may not be true. In this way, Kaalu Mallah, an eyewitness of Vikram's death, comes back to the ravines and how he resolves the problem, the play is about that.