A Mime play on Sharmila draws crowd in Korea

Kolkata, Oct 13 (PTI) A mime play portraying 'Iron Lady' Irom Chanu Sharmila's 11-year-long hunger strike demanding repeal of the 'draconian' Armed Forces Special Powers Act has drawn applause at an international theatre festival in South Korea. The one-hour stage drama 'Mirel Masingkha' or 'The will of soul', based on Sharmila's lone struggle, was showcased at the Chuncheon Festival in the South Korean city of Gwangju last week in homage to the victims of the 1980 Gwangju massacre by a military dictator. A 15-member team of Imphal's Kanglei Mime Theatre Repertory presented the non-verbal play which was an instant hit as it struck a common chord with the Koreans. Our play reflects the atrocities in Manipur by the Indian military forces. This is similar to the oppression under Chun Doo-hwan's military dictatorship in Gwangju during the 80's, the play's director, Dr Sadananda Singh, told PTI from Imphal. Incidentally, Sharmila, who is forcibly nose-fed at the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal since November 2000, had won the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights in 2007. The success of the play was sealed when the audience and press barged into the green room after the performance. Someone from the audience came up and admitted that he cried while watching. He said Koreans share our pain as they had also suffered similarly 30 years ago, Singh said. (MORE) PTI NIK MD PR BB 10131158