Prem Utsav to celebrate Munshi Premchand’s 138th birth anniversary

To celebrate noted Hindi playwright, author and essayist Munshi Premchand’s 138th birth anniversary, a drama academy will be staging noted short stories by him as a part of a theatre festival. Called Prem Utsav, it is conceived, designed and directed by Mujeeb Khan, and is a 10-day long festival, which will be held between July 31 and August 9.
The festival, which started in 2006, has been staging Premchand’s plays for the last 13 years.Of the 315 short stories he penned down, the group has staged almost 311 of these. Premchand has also written 14 novels, several essays, letters and plays.
With socially relevant undertones, his stories have a modern outlook on life considering the times they were written in. Many of those deal with blind faith, women’s issues and the underprivileged sections of the society. These, in a way, helped shape the society's outlook. While novel-wise, ‘Nirmala’, ‘Godaan’, 'Kafan' have been his popular works, ‘Idgaah’, ‘Namak Ka Daroga’, ‘Bade Ghar Ki Beti’ are some other noted works by him. The festival has gone bigger and better over the years, and this year, it will be held at Shakuntalam Studios in Andheri, Mumbai.