Bhopal: 90-minute play depicts life, works of Varāhamihira

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A play ‘Varah Mihir,’ depicting the life and works of an ancient astrologer from Ujjan was staged in Maach form at Ravindra Bhawan in the city.

Scripted by Satish Dave and directed by Lokendra Trivedi, the play was presented by the students of MP School of Drama of batch 2021-22. This is the first performance of the batch. The play is based on the original script of Dr. Bhagwati Lal Rajpurohit.

The 90-minutes play highlights life and works of astrologer, astronomer, and polymath Varāhamihira who was born at Kayatha village of Ujjain.

According to one of his own works, he was educated at Kapitthaka. The Indian tradition believes him to be one of the "Nine Jewels' ' (Navaratnas) of the court of ruler Yashodharman Vikramaditya of Malwa. Varāhamihira's most notable works were the Pancha-Siddhantika, Brihat Samhita, an encyclopaedic work on architecture, temples, planetary motions, eclipses, timekeeping, astrology, seasons, cloud formation, rainfall, agriculture, mathematics, gemology, perfumes and many other topics.

Besides acting of students, sets, costumes, lights and music also added charm in the play especially folk dance of Malwa like Matki, Rajwadi. Pt. Om Prakash Sharma composed music of the play and colourful lights were designed by Anup Joshi ‘Bunty’.

Director Lokendra Trivedi claimed that this is the first play, based on Varāhamihira and was staged for the first time. “If plates are made on western astronomers like Galileo then why not on Indian astronomers,” he asked.

He said that basically it was an educational play which was prepared after research. The play was prepared in 20 days. “We stayed at Ujjain for 10 days along with students who also learnt the Maach dance form,” he said.

The second show of the same play will be staged on Thursday. “The play is also about to stage in Indore on January 27, 28 and 29 but it may be postponed or cancelled due to the third wave of Covid-19.,” said Trivedi who hails from Ujjain.