PUNE Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce (BMCC) has won the prestigious 56th Purushottam Karandak 2022 for their one-act play - Manjamma Puranam. This win comes after 14 years.The college had earlier won the trophy for 2 shoor directed by Alok Rajwade in 2009.
The Purushottam Karandak, is an annual inter-collegiate Marathi one -act play competition where students from across Maharashtra representing their respective college participate. The competition is known for giving a platform to amateur actors, some of whom have become professional actors, directors and playwrights.
“This year 50 colleges participated and 49 presented their plays following all the Covid norms. We held the Karandak after a gap of one year, but nothing could dampen the spirit and the energy of the college students participating,” said trustee Mangesh Shinde, Maharashtriya Kalopasak, who organises this competition.
“We were expecting the students to look at a play on Covid, which no one did, instead presented some very interesting plays like, Manjamma Puranam (BMCC),Trip (Pemraj Sarda College, Ahmednagar) Bhag Dhanno Bhag – (Modern College), Complete Void (Abasaheb Garware College), Panipuri (Ganeshkhind Engineering College),Varat (IMCC), Safar ( Kaveri Mahavidyalaya), Art (Vasantdada Patil Institute of Technology), and Every Night in My Dreams (Kashibai Navale College of Engineering). There were nine finalists whose performance were judged by Chinmay Sumeet, Shailesh Deshmukh and Nitin Dhanduke,” he added.
The preliminary round of the Purushottam Karandak was held from January 3 to 17, 2022. Although this Karandak has been held since 1963, it was not held in 2021 due to Covid, said organisers.
{{/usCountry}}The preliminary round of the Purushottam Karandak was held from January 3 to 17, 2022. Although this Karandak has been held since 1963, it was not held in 2021 due to Covid, said organisers.
{{/usCountry}}Manjamma Puranam, the winning play is written and directed by Shantanu Joshi and Yogesh Sapre. “We all were discussing what to perform for Purushottam Karandak, that is when we came across Padmashree B Manjamma Jogati’s interview. She was the only transgender woman to win Padmashree this year. Her life story was appealing and intimidating. Also, we found some relevance with mythology. Performing it along with live music was a real task but also it did add a great layer to the play,” said Sakshi Deshpande, SY BCom student and part of the team.
The Covid restrictions added many obstacles to the actors but they overcame them all to practice for the play with precautions. “We tried our best to not let these restrictions come in the way and had to practice the play with less than 20 people at a time,” she added.
“Purushottam Karandak has always been a prestigious competition for the drama groups in colleges in Pune. Great actors, directors and writers have grown under this competition and all this legacy and goodwill makes it a respected competition. This competition helps us concentrate mainly on direction, writing and acting. It is really a challenge to form a play with 16 people in the team,” said Yogesh Sapre.
The Purushottam Karandak award function will take place on January 29 at 6pm, followed by the performance of the winning play.