Hyderabad, February 10, 2018: Theatre is 3000years old. From the times of Greek Theatre, it has withstood the onslaught of TV B & W, TV Colour, Films, Social Media. Theatre will never die said Rakesh Bedi, well known theatre personality, film actor who is known for his comedy roles addressing a press conference prior to the performance of the “Last Over” a Hindi Comedy Play here in the city at Hotel Marriott on Friday night.
Addressing the press conference along with the co-star, Ananth Mahadevan and Director of the play Suketu Shah, Sameer Gupta, President of Rotary Club of Sunrise Secunderabad, Rakesh Bedi said “theatre culture doesn’t exist in reality. It is a very small tribe. Theatre has always been a partime or weekend activity. This is my biggest grouse, he said
Joining him, Ananth Mahadevan said, as long as theatre remains a part time activity it will not develop. We don’t we pay enough to the theatre professionals so that they don’t look anywhere. In Europe and London it is highly paid activity, he said.
Replying to a query, Rakesh Bedi said Over the last 8/9 years theater scenario improved, not only in Hyderabad but across many cities in India. Hyderabad is a very important venue for theatre.
Responding to another question, Rakesh Bedi said Government always gives step motherly treatment to the theatre. They are only interested in the taxes. Governments must come forward to encourage theatre, he said.
Newpapers in Mumbai are extremely theatre friendly. In Mumbai Theatre advertisements are allowed to be published at a discounted price, Bedi said.
I can’t open theatre school. I don’t have energy, nor I have so much patience to open a theatre school Rakesh Bedi added.
Twenty years ago, theatre used to be very active on weekends—Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And the tickets used to be sold in advance. Now there is no guarantee of selling tickets. For Theatre Play organizers it is a challenge, said Ananth Mahadevan.
Last Over is an urban, situational comedy in Hindi, revolving around young and newly married couple from Pakistan and India. The play was organized by Rotary Sunrise Service Trust, a charity wing of Rotary Club of Secunderabad Sunrise.
The play was witty; the characters were given unique characteristics in the play. The play had plenty of punches to kept the one thousand plus audience engaged for two hours. The Cast of the play included Rakesh Bedi, Ananth Mahadevan, Gunjan Malhotra, Abhishek Patnaik, Zachary Coffin & Abhishek Krishnan. The play is written by – Abhishek Pattnaik and Directed by – Suketu Shah
The play, “Last Over,” was organised to raise funds Rs 40 lakh to provide Sanitary Systems to 27 Govt Schools. The theater play is conceived to raise funds to take up Sanitation works in the 27 government schools where the Club has in the past supplied 2000 benches at the cost of Rs 65 lakh. The club members visited the schools and found the facilities to be in an unusable and dilapidated state.
In the last 17 years, the Rotary Club of Secunderabad Sunrise has taken up service projects worth approximately Rs 2crore.
The club has taken up this project under the theme “WINS & WASH” to provide clean and usable precast sanitation systems to the identified 27 schools. The total project outlay is approximately Rs. 40Lakh and we aim to raise these funds via a Fund Raiser.
Rotary India WinS Program is a pan India campaign initiated by Rotary in India under the leadership of TRF Trustee & Past Rotary International Director Sushil Gupta as its Chairman, in support of the national campaign “Swachh Bharat - SwachhVidyalya” launched by HRD Ministry under “Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan” initiated by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A key feature of the campaign is to ensure that government schools in India have a set of functioning and well-maintained water, sanitation and hygiene facilities. It aims to improve the curriculum and teaching methods while promoting hygiene practices and community ownership of water and sanitation facilities within schools. It improves children’s Health, school enrolment, attendance, and retention and paves the way for new generation of healthy children.
WASH in Schools helps fulfill the universal right to education and health and meets its role in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, thereby increasing access to primary education, reducing child mortality, advancing gender equality and meeting targets for improving water and sanitation.
Some of the service projects of the club include: Irrigation project at Boorgamped Village, Bhadrachalam at the cost of Rs 60 lakh; School benches to 27 government schools at the cost of Rs 65 lakh. It is the single largest project ever undertaken by a single Rotary Club, through the CSR route of funding –funding by BHEL.
