Dr. Avnish Jolly, Chandigarh:Scene VII Day of reckoning: 23 Aug, 1993 Locale: Tagore Theatre, Chandigarh.
After over four months of grilling in various streams of theatre, the young souls were ready with their first production, first of their life and first of its kind perhaps. Their maiden show was staged on on 23 August, 1993 at Tagore Theatre, a venue that symbolizes ultimate destination for theatre lovers of Chandigarh. To say the least, the show was grand success. Not only it won tremendous applause from viewers, it also attracted the roving eyes of many a media persons, who were all praise for such a brave and unique attempt at bringing slum children to main stream life. Profuse public attention metamorphosed these street urchins into confident modern kids. Morale of young man was touching sky. After facing all odds, he finally succeeded in putting some light in the gloomy life of a few street children. More important than magnitude of success was the fact that a beginning has been made. From now onwards, there was no looking back. The show was staged several times at many more venues and at every show, public response was better than the previous show. Emboldened by the grand success of their first venture, the children were bursting with confidence. Thus, soon the group was ready with another in-house production – “Jaanwar Hota Aadmi” (If Animals were Human Beings). Staged in June, 1994, this too was a runaway success.
The mission started picking speed on the highway of success.
The story behind the curtains:
By now the mission had taken a concrete shape and attracted a number admirers and well wishers. They included prominent citizens, administrators, media stalwarts, elite socialites etc. etc. To facilitate easy recognition of mission, it was given a name-Theatre Age, which later became an NGO dedicated to upliftment of slum children. The Young man behind the show was Zulfiqar Khan, a post graduate from Deptt. of Indian Theatre, Panjab University, Chandigarh. Born in July 1961 in a backward small town of Shahbad, Distt. Hardoi, U.P., Khan had first hand experience of misery. He was youngest of the six brothers and sisters in the family of a poor roadside labourer. Thanks to love & affection of family members, they ensured that at least last one of them must get some education. And Khan fulfilled their dreams in a rather proud manner. Recognizing his rich and valuable contributions, Chandigarh Administration honoured him with “Best Creative Person Award” on Republic Day in 1994.
By now, Khan was like a father figure to these 30 odd children and he practically adopted them. Day and night, he was working solely for these children, leaving behind his own family. Whatever paltry sum he earned from doing some odd theatre workshops in city schools, was spent fully on welfare of these children. Slowly and gradually, he started motivating children to join the stream of formal education. With the passage of time, sustained and dogged efforts of Khan bore fruit. A few of them joined formal Govt. School and rest use to come to an informal evening school that Theatre Age had started specifically for these children. Volunteers from various walks of life came forward and contributed to growth of this school. So now children were not only being helped in their formal studies, but they also learnt arts like dance, drama, music, drawing and painting, cooking etc. and more recently, even computers.
So you too can lend your helping hand to brighten the destiny of scores of children living in darkness of illiteracy and abject poverty. Mr. Khan can be contacted on his cell +91-9815145453, +91-9316132900, +91-172-22720105 / or you can e-mail him at theatreage_chd@yahoo.com