ASHADH KA EK DIN – MOHAN RAKESH

Ashadh ka ek din is a three-act play centered on Kalidas' life, sometime in the 100BCE-400CE period. In the first
act, he is leading a peaceful life in a Himalayan village and is romantically involved with Mallika. However, he is
invited to appear at King Chandragupta II's court in far-off Ujjayini. Torn between his current idyllic existence and
love on one hand, and the desire to achieve greatness on the other, he leaves for Ujjayini in a conflicted state of
mind. Mallika wants the best for the man she loves, so she encourages him to go to Ujjayini. In the second act,
Kalidas has achieved fame and is married to a sophisticated noblewoman, Priyangumanjari, while Mallika is
heartbroken and alone. Kalidas visits his village with his wife and a small retinue. He avoids meeting Mallika, but
Priyangumanjari does. Priyangumanjari demeaningly offers to help Mallika by making her a royal companion and
marrying her to one of the royal attendants, but Mallika declines. In the third act, Kalidas reappears in the village.
Mallika ( with her mother Ambika dead )is now married to & has a daughter from Vilom, a kind of Villain whom
Mallika & Kalidas always hated for questioning their relationship from a worldly perspective . Mallika learns that he
has renounced his courtly life and the governorship of Kashmir that he had been granted. Kalidas comes to see
Mallika but, learning of her situation, despairs. The play ends with him leaving her house abruptly. [1][5] Mallika, in
a soliloquy says, "Even if I did not remain in your life, you always remained in mine. I never let you wander from
my side. You continued to create and I believed that I too am meaningful, that my life is also productive."[6]
One critic has observed that each act ends "with an act of abandonment on the part of Kalidasa: when he leaves for
Ujjayini alone; when he deliberately avoids meeting with Mallika during his subsequent visit to the village; when he
leaves her home abruptly.” The play portrays the personal price that both Kalidas and Mallika pay for his decision to
reach for greatness. As Kalidas deserts Mallika and moves to Ujjayini, his creativity begins to evaporate, though his
fame and power continue to rise. His wife, Priyangumanjari, struggles in vain to replicate his native surroundings
but "she is no substitute for Mallika."[5] In the final meeting between Mallika and Kalidas at the play's conclusion,
Kalidas admits to Mallika "that the man she had before her was not the Kalidasa she had known."[5] He reveals to her
that "Whatever I have written has been gathered from this life. The landscape of Kumarasambhav is this Himalaya,
and you are the ascetic Uma. The Yaksha's torment in Meghaduta is my own torment and you are the Yakshini
crushed by longing. In Abhijnanashakumtalam, it was you whom I saw in the form of Shakuntala. Whenever I tried
to write, I reiterated the history of your and my life.

ABOUT THE WRITTER

Mohan Rakesh (8 January 1925 – 3 January 1972) was one of the pioneers of the Nai Kahani ("New Story")
literary movement of the Hindi literature in the 1950s. He wrote the first modern Hindi play, Ashadh Ka Ek
Din (One Day in Aashad) (1958), which won a competition organised by the Sangeet Natak Akademi. He made
significant contributions to the novel, the short story, travelogue, criticism, memoir and drama.

He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1968

Rakesh was first married in 1950 in an arranged marriage which ended in divorce in 1957. His second marriage in
1960 too ended soon. However, in his third marriage to Anita Aulakh in 1963, he had found love. At the time of the
marriage Anita was 21 year old. After his death, she continued to live in Delhi and, now in her seventies, lives in
East of Kailash neighbourhood. Her autobiographical work, Satrein Aur Satrein, was first serialized in the Hindi
magazine Sarika, and later published in 2002.

He started his career as a postman at Dehradun, Bombay from 1947 to 1949, after that he shifted to Delhi, but found
a teaching job in Jalandhar, Punjab for a short while. Subsequently, he remained Head of the Hindi department at
DAV College, Jalandhar (Guru Nanak Dev University) and a school in Shimla for two years before coming back to
teaching Jalandhar. Eventually, he resigned from his job in 1957 to write full-time. He also briefly edited Hindi
literary journal Sarika, from 1962-63.[1][5]
His noted novels are Andhere Band Kamare (Closed Dark Rooms) and Na Aane Wala Kal (The Tomorrow That
Never Comes). His plays Ashadh Ka Ek Din (One Day in Aashad) (1958), played a major role in reviving Hindi
theatre in the 1960s[6] and Adhe Adhure (The Incomplete Ones or Halfway House) (1969) are highly regarded. His
debut play Ashadh Ka Ek Din was first performed by Kolkata-based Hindi theatre group Anamika, under
director Shyamanand Jalan (1960)[7] and subsequently by Ebrahim Alkazi at National School of Drama Delhi in
1962, which established Mohan Rakesh as the first modern Hindi playwright. [1] His plays continue to be performed
and receive acclaim worldwide. One Day in the Season of Rain, Aparna Dharwadker and Vinay Dharwadker's
authorised English translation of Ashadh Ka Ek Din, premiered at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin, United
States in 2010 and traveled to the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (Region 3) in 2011.
Lahron Ke Rajhans (The Swans of the Waves), a noted play of Mohan Rakesh about an ancient Buddhist tale on the
renunciation of the Buddha, and its aftereffects on his close family, was first written as a short story and later turned
into a radio play for All India Radio Jalandhar, and broadcast under the title Sundri, though his struggle over
different versions of the play lasted for nearly 20 years, before creating his masterpiece. [8] Prominent Indian
directors Om Shivpuri, Shyamanand Jalan, Arvind Gaur and Ram Gopal Bajaj directed this play.[9] In 2005, this very
writing process of the play, and Mohan Rakesh's diary, writings, and letters about the play, were recreated in a play
titled Manuscript, by a Delhi theatre group.
His story "Uski Roti" (One's Bread) was made into an eponymous film by Mani Kaul in 1971, for which he also
wrote the dialogue.[10] In July 1971, he received the Jawarharlal Nehru Fellowship for research on 'The Dramatic
Word'. However, he could not complete it and died on 3 January 1972.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Gaurav Panchal is an artist who started his journey in theatre with Asmita Theatre Group under the direction of
Mr. Arvind Gaur in 2013. He has been a part of many plays as an actor with Asmita Theatre Group like; Ramkali,
Courtmartial, Mote Ram ka Satyagrah, Chukayenge Nahi, Ek Maamooli Aadmi, Trial of Errors, Operation Three
Star, The Last Salute, Partition, Final Solution and many more along with more than 2,500 street plays ranging from
issues around atrocities against women, to environmental issues, to valuing human life and to exercising one’s
democratic rights. He was also a part of his college theatre group where he had the opportunity of performing and
experiencing French theatre. He did several theatre workshops with children in schools and in shelter homes for
children.

Later, he moved to Mumbai and worked as an assistant director in two web series and a feature film. He made
several short-films like ‘I’m Normal, You’re Not’, ‘Aroma’, ‘Saakshaatkaar’ and many more, as an actor and as a
director. He did casting for some advertisements, short-films, music video as an assistant and has been working
freelance also.

Gaurav has developed a keen sense of social realities and hopes to do his part for the betterment and the upliftment
of the society and promote social awareness with the help of media. He strongly believes in his philosophy that it is
the duty of every public figure to reflect on to the ways that a human being can step towards, making our society a
worthy one to live in.

“Ashaad ka ek din” has always been a dream project for him and is his first play with which he is stepping into the
world of theatre as a director.

ART DIRECTOR : ROHIT RAI SAHAB

MUSIC : RAJ SHARMA

PRODUCTION : RAJ SHARMA

PRODUCTION ASST. : ADITYA SHARMA, ANJALI

COSTUME. : MAAN

BACKSTAGE : MUKESH, SANJEET, NITISH, SONU, VIRENDRA, PRATHMESH DUBEY.

CAST-

AMBIKA : RITA AGGARWAL

MALLIKA : ANAMIKA SHUKLA

KALIDAS : RAHUL RANJAN

DANTUL : AMITESH RAJ

MATUL : SACHIN SHARMA

NIKSHEP : MUSTKEEM ANSARI / MUKESH PODDAR

VILOM : SASHIKANT

RANGINI : AKANSHA

SANGINI : ANJALI

ANUSWAR : ROHIT RAI SAHAB

ANUNASHIK : ADITYA SHARMA

PRIYANGUMANJRI : SHALINI CHAUHAN