Famous play 'Maya II' performed at NSD

Play: Maya II

Playwright & Director: B. Banamali Sharma

Group: Sharma Arts & Craft House (SACH), Imphal, Manipur

Language: Non-verbal

The Group

‘Sharma Arts & Craft House’ (SACH) is a premier house of fine arts and crafts based in Imphal, Manipur, with network outreach in Manipur, Tripura and Assam. In 2004 it became a registered Trust under the Indian Trust Act 1882 to take care of the art properties. Despite its speciality in plastic arts, a series of site-specific multimedia experimentation entitled MAYA (The Illusion) began from 2010 to create a public art installation based on site-specific exercises shared by individuals from diverse backgrounds, such as creative art, painting, sculpture, music and light design. SACH provides space for art exhibitions and creative performances to artists free of cost at its complex; and has also organised an evening of contemporary dances as well as embarked on collaborative projects. Its project MAYA-I,the first of its kind to be ever attempted in the State, was performed at Bhagyachandra Open Air Theatre, Imphal, in November 2011, and was witnessed by three thousand spectators.

The Play

It is Maya, the veil of deception, which blinds the eyes of mortals,

And makes them behold a world which they cannot say either that

it is or that it is not: for it is like a dream; it is like the sunshine on the sand which

the traveller takes from afar for water, or the stray piece of rope he mistakes for a snake”

Ancient Indian scriptures

Life is something that is not static but keeps moving. It is a journey or a passage that begins somewhere and ends at some point in time and space.

A dualism is always present. The past, the present and the future have thinly divided grounds. The process of perpetuating the population through sexual union between the male and the female is natural. But aspiring for something that is far away is like the desire of the moth for the star; this is also human nature and a cause behind the teeming populace. These are just some of the ideas that Maya II attempts to explore.