Rajiv Malik, HPI Correspondent.
NEW DELHI, INDIA, April 25, 2005: “Think not that you are weak and miserable. Arise, awake and manifest your own nature,” these famous and inspiring words of the Hindu spiritual prophet of modern India, Swami Vivekananda, were received with a thundering applause by a 1,600 strong audience who was present in New Delhi’s prestigious Siri Fort Auditorium on the evening of Sunday, April 24, 2005, to witness a musical one-act play on Swami Vivekananda’s life. The two hour play entitled “Beacon of Our Heritage” was conceived, written, composed, directed and enacted by 45-year-old Shri Shekhar Sen who has performed in many countries including USA and UK and was presenting this particular play for the 72nd time in the past one year.
Through his performance Shekhar Sen tried to touch all important facets of Vivekananda’s life. The two most important events in the life of Vivekananda, meeting with his spiritual guru Swami Ramkrishna Paramhansa and the address to the World Conference on Religions in Chicago in 1893 were done in an extraordinarily brilliant manner. Dressed like Vivekananda, his hold on dialogue was remarkable and outstanding.
Later in an interview with HPI , Sen said, “My effort has been to portray the great Indian idols. In the past I did similar performances on the lives of Kabir and Tulsi and they were received very well all over the world. On the Vivekananda play I had to do research on the life of Swami Ji for around three years and in this, the monks of Ramakrishna Mission were extremely helpful to me. I realized that Swami Vivekananda was the true cultural ambassador of India. He was extremely patriotic and spiritual.”
Sen further told HPI, “Portraying the life of Swami Vivekananda who has done so much in such a short span of life has been a big challenge for me. In fact at one point I had come to a stage that I decided not to go ahead with this project as the personality of Swami Ji was so great that I would not be able to handle it. But later on I took the project in a more determined way and the result is before you. I am really moved by the response I received in Delhi. In fact though the duration of the play was two hours, it got extended by ten to fifteen minutes due to the continuous clapping and applause that I received from the audience.”
Shekhar Sen also informed HPI that he will be coming again to Delhi on May 4, 2005 when he is scheduled to perform this play exclusively for the members of the Indian parliament and considers getting such an opportunity as a great honour for an artiste.
The play was organized by South Delhi Zone chapter of Vidya Bharati which is said to be the largest non-governmental body. They are running over twenty-two thousand primary and secondary level schools all over India. Addressing the jam packed auditorium, Shri Dina Nath Batra, Vice President of Vidya Bharati said- “Swami Vivekananda wanted that all the Indians worship Mother India and have a picture of the Mother in every home. Swami Ji also emphasized a lot on doing physical work, performing action and remaining healthy. The third point which Swami Ji was very particular about was that every Hindu home should have a place of worship. The house that you are building with crores of rupees is of no real purpose if it does not have a “Thakur Badi” [a place of worship where the Lord dwells].”