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Ank Mumbai NGO Organization Members

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Ank Mumbai Key Issues and Operational Areas, Major Activiities & Achivements

Operational Districts: Visakhapatnam,Sivasagar,Ahmadabad,Hisar, Faridabad,Shimla,Udhampur,Bhopal, Jabalpur,Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Amritsar ,Bikaner, Jaipur , Ajmer,Chennai,Lucknow,Dehradun, Hardwar,Kolkata

Operational States: ANDHRA PRADESH, ASSAM, GUJARAT, HARYANA, HIMACHAL PRADESH, JAMMU & KASHMIR, MADHYA PRADESH, PUNJAB, RAJASTHAN, TAMIL NADU, UTTAR PRADESH, UTTARAKHAND, WEST BENGAL

AchieveMents: ANK (DINESH THAKUR’S ANK) Ank is a regularly performing Hindi Theatre group in Mumbai and has completed 40 years of regular theatre activity in Hindi with 82 quality plays and more than 7000 successful shows all over the country as well as overseas, making it one of the largest performing teams in Hindi in the country. Ank was created by Dinesh Thakur who had himself notched up nearly five decades of experience in Theatre. Theatre for Ank is not only entertainment, but a source of respite as well as rejuvenation to the audience and the performer; a custodian of values as well as a statement of cultural individuality in society. Having come into being in 1976 and picked up momentum in 1978 with the emergence of Prithvi theatre in Mumbai, Ank today has one of the largest bodies of work in Hindi participating in numerous festivals and having travelled extensively in India and abroad with its productions. Starting with almost non-existent Hindi theatre audiences in Mumbai, Ank took upon itself the task of not only creating a regular Hindi theatre-going and ticket buying audience but also of laying the foundations and holding together a group of committed and dedicated theatre workers. Today, Ank’s repetoire has run the entire gamut from original works in Hindi to the best in national and international theatre, from the thought-provoking and the serious to the tragical, from court-room dramas and the hilarious to the deeply comical and outright farcical. It was Ank’s `Hai Mera Dil’ which gave Prithvi theatre its first housefull and has now become the longest running comedy in the history of Hindi theatre with 1125 shows. Plays like Vijay Tendulkar’s `Anji’(760 shows), `Khamosh! Adalat Jari Hai’, and `Jaat Hi Poocho Sadhu Ki’, Mohan Rakesh’s `Aadhe Adhoore’, Mahesh Elkunchwar’s Atmakatha’, adaptation’s like `Beewion Ka Madarsa’(830 shows), `Bhaagam Bhaag’(664 shows), `Tere Pyar Mein’, `Tum kya Jano Preet’ and Javed Siddiqui’s `Hamesha’ are prominent among Ank’s repertoire. Ank first took the initiative of staging 25 continuous shows of its classic farce ‘Jaane Na Doongi’ and then 30 continuous shows of Girish Karnad’s monumental classic `Tughlaq’.It was Ank’s prerogative to honour and felicitate theatre persons from Gujarati, Marathi, English and Hindi, critics, benefactors as well as well-wishers as a gesture of goodwill. Recognizing the great contribution of playwrights, Ank in its 24th year felicitated Vijay Tendulkar as the playwright of the millenium and performed 6 of his plays through the year. Our Founder president and Director Shri Dinesh Thakur was awarded The Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Direction for 2009. Dineshji is also the recipient of the Rajasthan State Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. He was also awarded the V.Shantaram Lalit Kala Hindi Vishisht Sewa Award by the Maharashtra State Hindi Sahitya Akademy for his contribution in Theatre. Ank is also probably the only theatre group to have donned the mantle of cultural ambassadors when invited by the Government of Mauritius to perform during our Republic day celebrations in that country.