Nukkad Natak based on the Uttarakhand floods held at Dilli Haat.

Mr. Google says- "Street plays have been an integral part of Indian tradition. The idea of a street play is to propagate social and political messages in a humorous and sarcastic way and create awareness among the masses. A street play, or nukkad natak, is characterized by highly enthusiastic and energetic performance so as to attract maximum crowd."

Enthusiasm? Energy? That's just two out of the many diverse components that helped make The Indian School's first street play outside school premises a success.

On the 11th of July, the students of our School staged a street play at "Dilli Haat", near INA Market, in an attempt to create awareness about what led to the Uttarakhand disaster. Our actors included students from class 11 -Garvit, Deepak, Ojasvi , Hema, Ahan, Shafaq, Surbhi, Lizza, Natasha, Adil, Prashansa . The play was conceptualised by our teachers, Ms. Satyabhama, Priya Manchanda, Sapna and Sukhmeen Cheema.

Preparing a street play on such a controversial topic was a mammoth task. To see our class fellows perform in a prime tourist spot in Delhi was quite unbelievable. What our so called, "Eco-minded" politicians do not seem to understand, the students of class XI grasped easily! The natak was filled with humorous yet meaningful scenes and attracted all kinds of people. Even shopkeepers, forgetting their sales' prospects, stopped by.

We are taught that drama is an attractive mode of communication where the character quickly connects to the audience. The students, all of whom were playing characters affected by the floods, aptly played out their parts. One could see the agony on their faces. It was moving and carried itself to the audience. We have all read about the incidents in the newspapers, but the drama enabled us to firsthand experience, as it were it's vulnerability.The nukkad natak was our school's identification with the suffering. We felt proud of our talented classmates who performed and we hope to be given a chance to lend expression to serious causes such as this again and again with the medium of drama.

Ishan Mahendru and Sanchari Banerjee, 12-C