The streets of Delhi are sometimes seen very quite and lonely but sometimes a great hustle and bustle is experienced, like if we talk about the highly populated streets of Old Delhi we can witness a certain kind of vibe which makes us feel the cosy arms of the city making us comfortable. The population of the place is not only responsible for the noise but there are many groups who take pride to step on the various streets of Delhi bare footed in their colourful Kurtas and Chunnis with some placards and instruments like drums, harmonium and even Daflis. Yes, you are right I am talking about the street play societies of Delhi. These college students have taken the level of street plays to a new height with the variety of brilliant ideas in their scripts and their direction skills. There are many celebrities too who have been a part of these societies like Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Imtiaz Ali and many more. There are Dramatics Societies which are twenty to twenty five years old like the dramatics society of Ramjas college, Delhi University. There are many events which invite the street play societies to participate and
win a handsome amount, certificates, popularity and even opportunities because they never know if a director like Imtiaz Ali might be watching them while they are performing. The events start around the month of September from All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), named as Pulse. Then the journey of events like BITS Pilani, BITS Goa, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur begin. The teams prepare their scripts after the freshers arrive and make their way to the team. They also contribute to the script making process as well as taking knowledge about acting, singing and other skills required in dramatics by their seniors or sometimes from some teacher. These societies are well funded by the college management for all sorts of equipment, refreshments and clothing. But there are some societies too who do not get any type of financial support from their colleges like some teams like Shaurya Dramatics Society, Aflatoon Dramatics Society of IP University, the members of the society contribute towards the expenses of getting equipment and accessories. Inspite of theses hardships these students never fail to give their hundred percent on the streets.
The event hosts cordially invite the entries of the street play societies for the preliminary rounds of the competition which includes the script of the play, the team list and sometimes anything which has creativity in it, like the registration process of the event of Hindu College, Madina requires the scripts of the last three years from the participants.
These plays are on many current topics as well as some unknown topics too like the suppressed yet very important topic of environmental degradation or body shaming etc. There are external organisations like Volunteers for volunteerism (V4V) who organise meet ups between teams and they discuss the workings of each other so that they learn more about their competitors as well as they learn ways to improve their quality of output every year.
As we all know the days of street plays or nukkad nataks have reduced and have been reducing because of the growth of the television and the stage plays but still these college students have kept it alive and will never let it essence of information delivering through Street plays disslove.