A play ‘Ram Ki Shakti Puja’ (showing the worship of Goddess Durga being performed by ‘Maryada Purushottam’ Lord Ram mesmerised the audience at Shankaracharya Chowk in the Kashi Vishwanath Temple (KVT) premises on the auspicious occasions of Saptami and Ashtami of Shardiya Navratri. The story of the play is based on the Shakti Puja performed by Lord Ram when his war against Ravana was going on.
According to the play story, when the Ram-Ravan war is going on, Lord Ram is dejected and feels defeated as his army is also unhappy and the memory of Sita makes him feel deeper. He leaves remembering the bravery and courage of the past days. The elders want to be excited but their morale is low. Shakti is also with Ravana. Lord Ram has seen the goddess herself fighting on behalf of Ravana. He tells his friends that victory is impossible and in mourning, Jamwant inspires Ram about the power of worship and advises him to fight the battle with perfection. Ram does the same.
On the other hand, a fierce battle is going on under the leadership of Laxman, Hanuman etc, on the other hand the worship of Ram is going on. He had resolved to offer 108 Neelkamals to the Goddess, but the Goddess comes secretly and steals the last flower. Ram is distraught and shocked. Then he remembers that his mother used to call his eyes Neelkamal. He offers his eyes and picks up the arrow in his hands to shoot. Then the goddess appears. She stops Ram, blesses him, prays to him and becomes absorbed in Ram.
The cast included Swati (as Lord Ram), Nandini (Sita and Devi Durga), Sakhi (Lakshman), Tapas (Hanuman, Vibhishana and Jamwant) and Shashwat (Sugriva and Angad). The music was composed by JP Sharma and Ashish Mishra while the play was directed by Vyomesh Shukla.
Earlier, just before the staging of Ram’s Shakti Puja by the city’s prestigious theatre group Rupvani, Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust Chairman Professor Nagendra Pandey, Divisional Commissioner Kaushalraj Sharma and his wife and Chief Executive Officer of the temple Sunil Verma offered prayers amidst the chanting of the mantras by trust member Venkatraman Ghanpathy.
The first performance of Ram’s Shakti Puja took place on February 5, 2013 in the Nagari Natak Mandali here and since then the presentation has been alive, active and ongoing for the last 10 years. It was the 93rd presentation of the play and the next one will be staged in Gorakhpur on November 4.
The script was prepared by Dr Shakuntala Shukla. In the 1970s, Dr Shukla did research on Nirala’s poetry from the Hindi Department of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and also wrote a book titled ‘Nirala Ki Kavyabhasha’. The music of the presentation is completely based on the classical music of Banaras Gharana, which was composed in 2012 by a group consisting of Dr Shakuntala Shukla, Vyomesh Shukla, JP Sharma and Dr Ashish Mishra after their hard work for many months. JP Sharma and Ashish Mishra are the music directors of the presentation. The play’s director Vyomesh Shukla and actress Swati, who played the role of Ram, received the Kendriya Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for direction in 2017 and acting in 2021 respectively. This is the highest honour given to youth in the field of performing arts.
