Special Report: Upendra Yadav, BBC - India / VNFA / Vishwawani Samchar
Varanasi. Mr. Motilal Gupta, a senior playwright, theatre personality, and director, and founding member of Gokul Arts, passed away on March 5th at approximately 11 p.m. His last rites were performed with full rituals at Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi by his nephew, Uttam, in the presence of Dr. Shiv Sundar Ganguly, President of Gokul Arts and Secretary of India's leading non-governmental intelligence agency, the CPIB.
While serving as Program Executive at Gokul Arts, Motilal Gupta successfully organized the *All India Hindi Short Play Competition* for 27 years.
Late Motilal Gupta was also the theatre instructor, playwright and theatre director of the city's famous theatre organisation Prerana Kala Manch. He adapted dozens of stories of Munshi Premchand into theatrical form and gave them a powerful presentation under his direction. As his legacy, Late Gupta organised *Natya Anushthan* with 11 artists of Prerana Kala Manch in the year 2009 at Nagari Natak Mandali Varanasi. He entered his name in the Guinness Book of Records by staging 37 plays non-stop for 34 hours.
It is said that the late Gupta's love and passion for theatre was madness. He invented a new genre for street play presentations, which he named the *Evergreen Style*. Whether the plays of this style were performed on stage or on the street, audiences remained spellbound.
The late Motilal Gupta was honored with the Banaras Ratna Award by India's leading voluntary organization, Bharat Suraksha Parishad, for his artistic work. His passing has sent shockwaves through the city's cultural and theatrical circles. He was active in theatre and literature for a long time and enriched Varanasi's cultural tradition through the writing, direction, and staging of numerous plays.
During his theatrical career, the late Gupta mentored numerous artists and connected them to the stage. His contributions will always be remembered by the theatre community. Upon receiving the news of his passing, artists, literary figures, and social activists in the city expressed deep condolences.
The late Father Anand, Rajesh Srivastava, Ranjeet Yadav, Ajay Roshan, Ajay Thapa, Vivek Gupta, Naveen Chandra, Sanjay Verma, Aslam Sheikh, Raj Shekhar Ganguly, Harishchandra Pal, Bhola Singh Rathod, Father Dayakar, Dhanratan Yadav, Sanjay Srivastava and his family members, friends, theatre artists and many dignitaries of the city were present in Gupta's funeral procession and paid their heartfelt tributes to him and prayed to God to grant peace to the departed soul and give strength to the bereaved family to bear this irreparable loss. Dr. Arvind Gandhi, Rakesh Kumar Gupta, Dr. Jitendra Pratap Singh, Dr. V.P. Singh, Dr. Sultan Khan, Dr. Zamirul Islam, E. Moinuddin Ahmed, on behalf of Bharat Suraksha Parishad and CPIB, expressed grief and expressed condolences on the death of the late. Gupta and Senior Vice President of Indian Advocates Association and former General Secretary of Banaras Bar Association, Shri Tarak Nath Ganguly Advocate and Vice President Shashi Verma Advocate, described the demise of late Motilal as an irreparable loss to the theatre genre and expressed grief and paid tribute to him.
