Bhubaneswar: In Odisha’s folk culture, there are many things that are centuries old. One such is the 200-year-old and the oldest folk theatre, Prahallada Nataka, from Ganjam.
Started by the former king of Jalantara, Ramakrusna Chhotaraya, it continues to mesmerise people. It revolves around the mythological story of Vishnu’s man-lion incarnation Nrusingha, demon king Hiranyakashipu and his son Prahallada.
Recently, well known Twitterati Prateek Pattanaik made a video in an attempt to save this dying folk theatre which enjoyed huge popularity.
Appreciating his attempt, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Monday felicitated Prateek at the Secretariat. He is a student of B.Sc Physics in BJB College. The Nataka is quite grand in construction, from its unusual, bright, catchy costumes to the strong classical-based music. All the moves are regal and dramatic and the dialogues striking. The project was started by Prateek through crowd funding.
“Fearing what exists now might be lost in a few decades; I tweeted and asked the Odia Twitter community if they would be willing to financially assist this project. Most people were unaware of what Prahallada Nataka was in the first place. Soon, about 30 people agreed to help me. Within 1-2 weeks we raised funds for the project,” Prateek said.
He said that Prahallada Nataka is the grandest folk art form of Odisha, but is dying a slow death. “I started a crowd funded project to create the first ever complete documentation of it in an attempt to breathe new life into tradition using tech,” he added.
His plan was to completely record a 12-hour performance in an actual village setting March 1, the day of Dola Purnima, a festival when Prahallada Nataka is ritually staged. Prateek’s team comprised of senior wildlife photographer Debendra Pattanayak and theatre artist Arjun Samantray.
“Much before, we came to know of another performance just two days earlier in a place not far away from our original site, three of us agreed to start it immediately that night. Hence, we got not 12 but 24 hours of multicam footage,” he said.
Prateek hopes that digital preservation will revive Prahallada Nataka. “I want to remain close to my culture. I use technology to empower language and preserve culture. I am using Wikipedia, Twitter, YouTube and every other tool available to preserve Odisha’s dying art forms,” he added.
Recently, he talked about his documentary at the Odisha Craft Museum where the artistes from Ganjam performed the traditional folk art.
This is not the first time that the lad was in the news. Earlier, with the help of eminent writer Devdutt Pattanaik, known for his work on ancient Hindu scripture, the 18-year-old Prateek translated the Abolakara stories, a collection of stories like Jatak Kahani or Panchatantra from Odia to English and posted them on his website and social media to popularise Odia literature worldwide.
Abolakara is a collection of stories like Jatak Kahani or Panchatantra that are popular among children and have been translated into many Indian languages. It is an ancient collection of stories that grandmothers tell their grandchildren.
Prateek also runs a Twitter handle, @shrijagannatha, which has around 6,696 followers and constantly tweets about the ancient culture and folk tales around Lord Jagannath.
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