Friday, September 19, 2008

What's Hot? (TOI Supplement) - Cold shoulder to Marathi Nataks

"What's Hot" is a new supplement of Times of India that gives information on how Mumbaikars should spend their weekend... from films to restaurants and from exhibitions to theatre...






Speaking of Theatre, today's Edition has given details of 11 Plays... 3 English, 5 Gujarati, 3 Hindi... but no Marathi play! Those who are aware of the theatre scene in India know that Marathi theatre is very well developed and has a very strong tradition. (Only Bengali theatre tradition matches it.) My guess would be that at any given time there are more Marathi plays running in Mumbai than all other languages put together. So I picked up the copy of Loksatta (A Marathi Daily) to see how many Marathi plays are running in the city. You might be astonished to know that more than 20 Marathi play ads were there in the newspaper!
So the question is, why does “What’s Hot” give a complete cold shoulder to Marathi plays when English, Hindi and Gujarati plays hog all the limelight? Does the editor feel Marathi Manoos is culturally a 2nd grade citizen in this city?

Is MNS Listening?

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