In search of love on Seventh Horse

The last day of the 19th edition of ‘Bharath Rang Mahotsav’ has witnessed more crowd than the previous days for Hindi play ‘Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda’. The play ‘Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda’ is based on the same name of renowned poet, author and playwright, Dharamvir’s Bharti’s Hindi short novel. Based on this novel, renowned director Shyam Benegal also made a film, titled ‘Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda’.

Directed by Happy Ranajit, the play was an amalgamation of seven small stories of different emotions and flavours. It revolves around Manik Mulla and his love affairs with Jamuna, Lilly and Satti. The play starts with Manik Mulla, who narrates the story of three leading ladies of the play as an observer.

In the first story, he explains about Jamuna, who is a spirited girl and believes in love stories. But due to social and economic compulsions, she has to marry a man much older than her. But Jamuna was in love with Tanna, who is the regular good guy in a bad world.

The two families shared venomous relationship due to lack of consistency in the Indian economic balance. As a result of this, Tanna is married off to a more educated Lilly and Jamuna ends up with the old man. Actually, Lilly is in love with Manik Mulla. The third story is about Satti, a girl of the lower caste, who works for a man, who owns a small soap factory.

As the play progresses, the characters and situations of these stories intersect and overlap each other. At the end, all the stories merge and finally became a single story. The 95-minute play explains about Manik Mulla and his search for the meaning of love in his life. The play reflects the situations of middle-class people due to social restrictions, economic compulsions and pressures from society.