Documentary on bhand pather: folk theatre of Kashmir-India

The video is a documentary on bhand pather, folk theatre of Kashmir. The bhand pather is a popular form of folk theatre and the word bhand stands for ‘jester’ while pather means ‘drama’. It is exclusively associated with the community of bhands or folk theatre actors. The bhands enact around twelve types of bhand pather and across the valley the bhands form a well-organized folk theatre community. Among the bhand pather characters the maskhars or the jesters are important as they perform the pivotal role of lampooning anti-social and corrupt practices in daily life. The bhand performances usually revolve around the enactment of court intrigues, exploitation by government bodies, corruption of religious leaders, social injustices and official incompetence in the face of disasters. The wattal pather is considered to be the oldest drama while the angrez pather is the latest addition to the bhand pather repertoire. The plays are usually performed along with musical instruments like the dhol, nagara, surnai and Kashmiri folk instruments like tumbaknari and saz-e-kashmir.