As you sit in the pitch-dark hall of the Sarwanam Theater to watch “Janayudha Jari Cha?” you do not know what exactly to anticipate. But rest assured, this play will meet all your expectations. You will do well to closely watch. The actors are not just on the stage; they may, in the middle of an act, flood towards the audience, making the audience feel as if they are in a battlefield, first-hand witness of the decade-long Maoist rebellion. When the play starts, you get a sense that a lot of energy has gone into it. Everything looks well planned—the actors, stage decoration, and props.

 

At certain points, you even get goose­bumps, looking at the fantastic stage choreography, the ominous build-up to a climax or sharp dialogue delivery. “We spent five months just practicing. Three months we spent on outdoor training,” reveals Raj Shah, the writer, director and an actor of “Janayudha Jari Cha?”

 

In just an hour “Janayudha Jari Cha?” successfully shows you how young and patriotic Nepalis fought for their beliefs, the struggles they faced when leaving their families to join the revolu­tion, the pain they felt when they killed someone or when someone they knew died and how, at the end, they felt the sacrifices they made were for nothing as they did not really get what they aimed for—a better Nepal. Shah wrote the play as a homage to the young who died for a cause believed in. “I just want to do justice to the fighters who gave their all for the country,” Shah says. The play will be staged at 5:15 pm every day till October 7 (except on Thursdays) at Sarwanam Theater, Kalikasthan.