The North America Shirdi Sai Temple of Atlanta (NASSTA) staged the play “Shri Sai Darshan” on Saturday May 10th, 2008, at Meadow Creek High School. The day’s function commenced promptly at 2.30pm.and the drama was preceded by the rendering of devotional songs in praise of the Shirdi Sai Baba by a group of over 43 devotees belonging to all age groups. The soul-stirring rendition, full of spiritual fervor, energized the atmosphere and transported all those present to a state of inexplicable ecstasy – preparing them all the while for the stage play that was to follow.

Unmindful of the physical discomfort, the assembled audience consisting of nearly five hundred and fifty people occupied till the end every conceivable space within the auditorium to witness the drama “Shri Sai Darshan”. After undergoing  a  truly profound experience, all the guests reverentially received the Prasad before leaving the place.

 

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.“Shri Sai Darshan” was made possible by a strong contingent of forty very committed and talented artists, more than twenty production crew members and another more than twenty persons doing miscellaneous work. The cast included several distinguished stalwarts like Swaroop Nyshadham, Amitabh Sharma, Vinod Nayyar, Neera Bahl, Rahul Saraf, Sunny Sachdeva, Samir Doshi, Neeta Shenvi, Smita and Vivek Bhide, Navin Tyagi, Anil Bedi, Abhay Gokhale and a host of others.


“Shri Sai Darshan” was a stage-play based on the renowned work ‘Sai Sat Charita’ written by Hemadpanth. Without deviating from the original story, the script highlighted the intricacies of Shirdi Sai Baba’s philosophy and his message to humanity at large.

Shri Sai Darshan was replete with pleasant devotional musical clips, that many in the audience were spontaneously motivated into singing from the floor! In fact, several members of the community commented later that they experienced an indistinguishably mixed feeling of happiness and sorrow, devotion and serenity – an experience hither to unknown.

Excellent histrionics, imaginative settings, appropriate props and colorful Maharashtrian period costumes added to the glitter of the show. The audience found awe-inspiring the life-size model of Dwarakamayi, Baba’s stone, and the neem tree.

Readers will doubtless recall the earlier memorable presentations by the same team, - ‘Ramayan’ in 2004, the Telugu plays ‘Sri Venkateswara Mahatyam’ in May 2007 and ‘Hara Vilasam’ in March, 2008.

For more information  please contact Krishna Kesavarapu at Krishna_atl@yahoo.com