Bal Utsav to bring Tagore's stories on stage

Popular children's stories of Rabindranath Tagore like "Kabuliwala" among others will be staged during a five-day children's theatre festival in the national capital beginning June 18, the organisers said Tuesday.

Presented by Hindi Academy, the inaugural "Bal Utsav" will showcase ten famous stories written by the Nobel laureate. Two plays will be staged per day at the Kamani Auditorium.

The theme of this year's festival is "This Summer Children are in Tagore's Company".

The academy had organised a month-long workshop across various schools in Delhi to choose children to play various roles in these plays.

"From these workshops around 450 students have been selected," an official from the Hindi Academy told IANS.

"In the workshop, directors and assistants trained these children. These stories were first translated from Bengali to Hindi and children started rehearsing," he added.

The festival will open with Rajesh Bakshi's "Ichchha Puran", followed by Asif Kamar's "Chhutti".

On the second day Nilesh Kumar Deepak's "Kabuliwala" and Anumita Dutta Choudary's "Taash Ka Desh" will be staged.

Other stories like "Doctor Babu aur Mukut", "Tota Kahani", "Subha", "Bhikarin", among others will be staged.