TUFS Students Perform Hindi Play at Indian Embassy

January 19, 2018

On Wednesday the 10th of January, 22 students from TUFS’ Hindi department performed the Hindi play Angulimala at the Indian Embassy in Tokyo. This performance was held as part of the celebrations of World Hindi Day, which also included special lectures by various speakers including His Excellency Mr. Sujan R. Chinoi, ambassador of India to Japan, and Professor Tomio Mizokami, emeritus professor at Osaka University (previously at Osaka University of Foreign Studies). After the performance, the students received much praise from the Indian members of the audience. Guidance on acting, speech, and organization of costumes in this performance was done by specially-appointed professor Richa Misra (World Language and Society Education Centre, Hindi language specialist) and Professor Keiko Shirai (Hindi language specialist).

Anne Patrice Moriya (School of Language and Culture Studies, Hindi Studies, second year)

I think this play was a very good chance for me to actually practice speaking Hindi. It was difficult to not only act in a different language, but to also create facial expressions and a presence like an Indian person. I played the part of the villain, and although I was shy at first, the more I practiced, the more I began to enjoy the role. Starting with our representative (Sato), and our director (Nasu), all of my classmates did what they could do, and worked proactively towards creating this play. From preparing all the scenery, props and costumes and holding multiple dress rehearsals, we were able to give a really good performance, and I feel a great sense of accomplishment.
I also feel that this play has brought me closer to my classmates, so I am really happy about that.
I am also thankful to the friends that I could rely on, the teachers that helped us, and the Gaigosai Executive Committee, without which we would have never had this opportunity.

Ryota Nasu (Director, School of Language and Culture Studies, Hindi Studies, second year)

The 2017 Hindi Language Play, I feel that we were able to achieve success at both the gaigosai and embassy performances. Practicing a foreign language play was not an easy task for us, as our days are usually occupied by study and club/circle activities. It was rare to have everyone turn up to practice, and so many of our practices were the same people practicing the scenes they appeared in together over and over again. Because of this, I was worried about the scenes in which many actors appeared on stage together. However, at Gaigosai, I feel that we gave a performance well above the standard of our practices. I guess you could say that this result is due to the focus we put into practicing, even though our practices greatly restricted what we could do. Moving on to the embassy performance, in addition to having very limited time to practice, there were strict restrictions on using scenery etc., but through intense practices and the ideas of friends, we were able to get through it.

This year, we performed a play about Buddha titled Angulimala. The story follows Angulimala, who goes around killing many people without punishment, and how he changes for the better through meeting Buddha. As it is a very old story, it was difficult to recreate the scenery and clothing, and there were many words in the script which one would not use every day nor come across when studying Hindi. To really improve our play, we were taught many things by our Hindi teachers. We borrowed books on Indian clothing culture and cd’s on indigenous music, and also had the teachers teach us how to wear the clothing we used in the play. Our play would not have been a success without the help of these teachers.

I took on the role of director and producer for this play, but I feel that I was able to see this play through to the end thanks to the assistance of many people. I am very grateful to them all. It was very stressful, and I wanted to quit more than once, but looking back it was a very valuable experience.

Center: Ambassador of India to Japan His Excellency Mr. Sujan R. Chinoy, center-left: Professor Tomio Mizokami, emeritus professor at Osaka University (previously at Osaka University of Foreign Studies).