Kamal Naskar is among those rare, few mime exponents, especially in Kolkata and West Bengal, who has left no stone unturned to tap immense possibilities drawn from life—the potentiality of mime as a performing art. His latest venture, “Values of Life”, was staged at Sisir Manch on 17 October in Kolkata. The mime festival included mime seminars, workshops, trials and error performances of aspiring mime exponents who came from the different rustic belts of Bengal, such as Purba Bardaman, Hooghly, Howrah, Uttar 24 Parganas (Hanabad), South 24 Parganas, Birbhum (Prantik) and Kolkata.
Kamal Naskar apparently has given much thought to conceptualising the miscellaneous values of the different facets of life. For instance, love for life and other human values, among which compassion, service, honesty, friendship, morality, et al., coupled with the message of peace of human values, surface in his repertoire of silent acting using mostly hands, feet and facial gestures. He also endeavours to depict great human beings who had lit the fire of protest in protecting these values. have come and gone and left the desired impact of their greatness on the hoi polloi since time immemorial.
He has also showcased through his mime techniques pointing to a group of powerful individuals of today’s modern civilisation, enlightened by the light of wisdom of great men. His mime repertoire also encapsulates the portrayal of the highly educated gone to waste by their double standards—their misguided, greedy, and selfish tendencies that don’t hesitate to inflict demonic torture on helpless human beings. With these ideals in mind, Naskar, the mime guru of many students in West Bengal, strives to bring to life eight story ideas within the time span of 110 minutes.
The mime show visualises an ensemble of human oppression by the powerful and affluent. Their cruelty extends to deforestation, ecological damage, and poaching of animals and birds. With this horrendous scenario, Naskar demonstrates with dramatic gestures how children of the next generation will be entering a dehumanised, mechanical life with pollution spreading into human-habitable environments. The degeneration extends to the so-called worship of Durga at face value with no respect or devotion to the Goddess. “Values of Life” also incorporates the thrills of the Ramayana unveiling Sitaharan concluding with Jatayu’s protest, and the dream of a one world and one family brings down the curtain, leaving the desired impact on the spectators. This mime festival was patronised by the state government.
The writer is an independent contributor