Badal Sircar- BHoma

 - Sweekriti 

"এ বছর পদার্পণ করলেন বাদল সরকার জন্মশতবর্ষে।

থিয়েটার জগৎকে দিয়েছিলেন নতুন রূপ, সমাজে তুলেছিলেন প্রতিবাদের ঝড়।

বাদল সরকার আপনকে জানাই প্রনাম"।

Badal Sircar was not just a playwright —"he was a revolution". 

This is the perfect way to introduce him to anyone unaware of his massive contribution to society and the theater world.

At a time in old Calcutta when mainstream theatre was locked behind stage lights and velvet curtains and restricted to the elites, Badal Sircar broke the barriers and brought it to the streets, to the people.

Plays like Ebong Indrajit, Michhil, and Bhoma challenged us to question the system, to reflect, and to act. With this, he introduced the "Third Theater"

 In Third Theatre, performances were held in open spaces, often outdoors. There were no fancy sets, lights, or costumes, but only the actors, their bodies, and voices. The aim was to speak about the real struggles of ordinary people, social and political issues, in a simple way that everyone could relate to.

It was during the time of political unrest that one of his powerful works, Bhoma, was published.

Originally written in Bengali in 1974, it was later translated into English by Samik Bandyopadhyay. 

Sircar, himself, was influenced by the Naxalite movement—a radical peasant uprising—focused on the struggles of poor farmers, which reflected in his writings. The play shows the post-colonial struggles of poor farmers.

In Bhoma, independence did not end the peasants’ suffering.

Instead of British rulers, they were now exploited by Indian moneylenders and industrialists.

Bhoma is based on a true story from Rangabelia, a village in the Sundarbans. Sircar heard about a poor farmer named Bhoma from a school headmaster and staged the play in Rangabelia in 1976 with his group.

Bhoma never appears onstage; villagers only talk about him. This unusual style was deliberate. It begins with six villagers, known only by numbers, talking about life. They know Bhoma but have never seen him. At first, they dream of city life where big roads, TV, airports, and restaurants are shown, but the play soon shows the real rural situation. We see scenes of farming struggles, lack of water, and villagers asking the government for help but getting nothing. A factory owner cheats them on pay, and nature—tigers, snakes, floods—kills Bhoma’s family members. Bhoma never appears; instead, his life is told through others’ memories, like small episodes and poetry that together show the hardships of the village.

The play shows again and again how the rich and powerful exploit poor farmers. A moneylender charges very high interest, and the Mahamaya Engineering Co. makes huge profits while paying workers almost nothing. Villagers say the rice eaten by city people is the “blood of the peasants.” In one scene, a poor stenographer is insulted when he asks a bank for money to buy farm tools, but a rich man easily gets credit. The message is clear: laws and the economy are against the poorest people.

Sircar wanted to show the real truths of village life, the exploitation, poverty, and the village gap. 

Badal Sircar himself quoted that , “ভোমা কোনো ঝকঝকে শোপরিচ্ছদ টিকিটধারী শোষিত বিরক্ত ‘ফ্রন্ট-রো’ দর্শকের বিনোদনের জন্য নয়।”

It simply means that, 

“Bhoma is not for the amusement of the well-dressed front-row audiences in a sumptuous auditorium.” 

It clearly sums up Sircar’s aim: theatre for the people, not for elite amusement.

It ties Bhoma to his Third Theatre politics — speaking for peasants and the marginalized.