Eminent Assamese theatre personality Abinash Sarma honoured

Assam's eminent theatre personality Abinash Sarma has been bestowed with the Life in Theatre award for his contribution to the art form, at the Guwahati Theatre Festival (GTF) here. The award, comprising a citation and a cheque of Rs 31,000, was presented to him by the Chairman of the Festival Sunit Jain on the concluding day of the festival on Sunday.

Sarma, on receiving the award, expressed his gratitude to the organisers for honouring him.

''Theatre has been my life and I hope to continue to be involved with the stage till the last days of my life,'' he said.

Associated with the GTF since its inception, 71-year-old Sarma developed a keen interest in traditional Assamese theatre forms like Jatra during his early years, which sparked his passion for drama and performing arts.

Despite lacking in formal training, Sarma's early exposure to the art form and his innovative spirit allowed him to excel in areas such as dramatics, writing, scripting and contemporary art forms, resulting in a significant and meaningful body of work in the performing arts.

He produced memorable and groundbreaking productions including ''Aditir Atma Katha'' and ''Momor Ghar'' which continue to impress theatre enthusiasts.

Life In The Theatre Award is an initiative of English weekly G Plus and Guwahati Theatre Festival since its inception to recognise outstanding theatre personalities of the state with earlier recipients being Dulal Roy, Kulada Bhattacharjee and late Arun Sarma, Nipon Goswami and Surkracharjya Rabha.

The sixth edition of the three-day festival, which began on Friday, presented three nationally acclaimed plays 'Barff', directed by Saurabh Shukla, 'The Scent of a Man' by Ashvin Gidwani, and 'Blame it on Yashraj' by Bharat Dabholkar.

The Guwahati Theatre Festival started in the year 2016 with an objective to bring in nationally and internationally acclaimed plays to theatre enthusiasts of the region and has become a landmark event in the cultural landscape of the region.

In the earlier five editions of the festival, stalwarts like Shabana Azmi, Amol Palekar, Rajat Kapoor, Lilette Dubey Vinay Pathak, Saurabh Shukla, Kalki Koechlin, Rajit Kapoor Atul Kumar had performed.

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