Srishti Cultural Centre, on the occasion of fifth anniversary of Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre (IGCC), presented a dance drama ‘Badi-Bandar Rupkatha’ at 06:00pm on 14 March at the National Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy.

The tale of the wood-cutter Ali Baba and the 40 thieves is one of the stories of the Arabian Nights. The story is about a black slave named Abdullah and a very beautiful woman-slave Morjina. Morjina is the heroine in the tale of Badi-Bandar Rupkatha. The triumph of Morjina is the basic content of the story. But the role of Abdullah is also not less important! In this backdrop, the story of ‘Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves’ has been presented in a new contemporary form with multi-media inputs and a new style in Badi-Bandar Rupkatha.

Abdullah is an unsuccessful lover. Following the self-told story of poor Abdullah, the viewers reach to a packed slave market in Baghdad where the maids were being sold. Later, the story slowly unfolds ... how Qasim, the greedy elder brother of Ali, made him a street beggar.... how Ali would make a living out of selling timber cut from the forest.

The rest of the story is known to all. Use of the magic spell ‘Open Sesame!’ to open the secret magical cave of bandits where they used to hide their looted wealth.... and later death of greedy Qasim... tricks of Mustafa and complete victory of Morjina. The story finally ends with a happy note.

IGCC was established in Dhaka on 11 March 2010. After establishment, the organisation has achieved enormous popularity through exchanging programmes between India and Bangladesh in various fields of culture including music, art, dance and drama. IGCC regularly organises cultural functions by artists from both the countries; and also runs various training courses on Yoga, Music, Dance, Hindi language and painting throughout the year.

‘Srishti’ started its journey through practicing Bharatanatyam, a form of Indian classical dance, in 1994. Although started with classical dance, they have worked with other forms of dance also.