Nadeera Babbar`s `Ekjute` celebrating 30 years in theatre

`Ekjute`, the theatre group founded by Raj and Nadeera over 3 decades ago is celebrating their journey so far with a 10-day festival.

New Delhi: `Ekjute`, the theatre group founded by Raj and Nadeera Babbar over three decades ago is celebrating their journey so far with a 10-day festival here beginning tomorrow.

Opening with the play ‘Pencil Sey Brush Tak’, based on the memoirs of legendary painter MF Husain and starring Tom Alter, Anup Soni and Juhi Babbar, the festival will show eight of the best productions by Ekjute. Actors like Ashish Vidyarthi, Anant Mahadevan, Yashpal Sharma, Vibha Chibber will be performing on stage with plays such as ‘Footnotes of Life’, ‘Kahaniyaan’, ‘Sandhya Chhaya’ and ‘Dayashanker ki Diary’ on display. "There is no particular design behind selecting the plays to be performed here since there is no theme to the festival. I am glad that we are able to perform in Delhi from where I began my theatrical journey," Nadeera told reporters. Most of the plays are written and directed by Nadeera, who was seen in films like ‘Bride and Prejudice’ and ‘Meenaxi: A tale of three cities’. She is also a prominent part of the cast of the many plays. Actor-politician Raj Babbar won`t be a part of any play but will be a constant support throughout the festival. His daughter Juhi is actively involved in every production, right from designing the costumes to donning the grease paint. Son Aarya juggles his film career with stints in theatre. "I have grown up with the theatre group and have become eventually involved with every aspect of it. We had this festival in Bangalore and Mumbai last year and eventually wanted to come to Delhi. The opening play is one of our classics where we see that part of Husain`s life which people don`t know about," said Juhi. PTI