Lead actor fails to get visa for New Jersey performance, blames organising panel

Twist in plot for Marathi Musical

Lead actor fails to get visa for New Jersey performance, blames organising panel

Members of the famed Bharat Natya Mandir are in New Jersey to perform a play, and the protagonist is missing. Nine of the 10 members invited by the Vishwa Natya Sammelan to perform the musical Katyar Kaljat Ghusali in the US got their visas, but not the actor who plays the lead character.

Practising hard for the performance since December, theu00a0 theatre group faced many anxious moments over the past few days as visas were delayed. Finally, all visas were issued on Friday, the day they were to leave, but for the lead actor's visa.

Sanjeev Mehendale, the actor who plays the protagonist, is blaming the Vishwa Sammelan organisers for the chaos.

"The Marathi Natya Parishad, which is the organising committee for the Vishwa Natya Parishad, is responsible," said Mehendale.

Since the show is scheduled today, a relatively new hero, Hrishikesh Badwe, will now play the lead role.
Badwe has so far played the role of the main character Sadashiv as a child in the play; now he will also become the older Sadashiv played by Mehendale.

Vijay Vankar, president, Bharat Natya Mandir added that in New Jersey music director Rajiv Paranjpe had already gotten busy taking Badwe through the steps for the challenging role.

The Bharat Natya Mandir team sent the invitation seven months ago to specially perform the musical, and work on the formalities for the visit had started six months ago.

Members claim that they were orally informed that the entire team had got their visa, but somehow only nine of them got the documents at the eleventh hour.

"The passport office and American Consulate closed at 5 pm on May 28. Two months' practice and preparation has gone down the drain," said a disheartened Mehendale.

Vankar added, "This was the first play from our organisation to be invited to the US. This has demoralised all of us. The Marathi Natya Parishad should have taken the onus and ensured that everything was in place and there was no confusion."

Besides Mehendale, theatre lovers Pratibha Date and Swati Deshmukh, who wanted to accompany the team, had to return disheartened as they, too, were refused a visa.