Vipul singh who is walking from Bhopal to Nepal to Kashmir, with 685 performances done already.
Vipul Singh has a tale that will thrill you to your heart’s content. The “vagrant thespian” or nomadic solo performer who was once disabled is now on a mission to overachieve in order to compensate for that baloney diagnosis. Walk with the previously ‘handicapped’ vagabond from Bhopal to J&K, revel with the villagers that cross his path in his performances on everything from education to menstruation, and in the process, learn how else this life can be lived.
He learnt that every state was grappling with social issues, and thought that the raw and candid medium of ‘nukkad nataks’ would be the most impactful method to drive a point home. So, the plan was to be a travelling artist, acting in all his soloplays himself, as acting was his first love. He chalked out a plan with pretty much one hack – finding the cheapest modes of transport to get around, right from the general compartments of trains to hitching rides on bullock carts and trucks. “I don’t call myself a traveller; nowadays, one goes to their grandma’s place and calls themselves a ‘traveller’ to act all cool. I was first a theatre artist, and then everything else,” he says. The result – he travelled to almost 14 states with his sketches.
As far as the topic of his plays go, you name a social issue, and he says he has performed a sketch on it, which isn’t hard to believe, considering that he has done a staggering 685 performances till date. “But the topics closest to my heart are sex education and menstruation. To this day, every time I perform on the topic of menstruation, where I play a woman, tears well up in my eyes. Most of these are performed in backward areas like villages and small towns
