We human beings are all banished souls. We have been sent here to serve our agonizing term. Our sojourn here on this earth is actually a period in Dantesque Purgatorio. Here we live out our curse and are expected to purify our inner self. Because then only we will be able to transcend the mortal ceiling and fly back to the divine Arcadia of eternal joy and uninterrupted peace.   

But alas, in this theater of absurd, all too often we are misled and waylaid. We indulge in power play. We let beauty beguile us. We commit blunders without caring for the consequence. Tragedy comes our way to test our strength. But instead of facing it with patience and courage, we let it overwhelm us. Negative characters in the dark drama of life are actually there to inspire us and help us evolve into superior beings. But we get provoked by them and let our impatience be the enemy of our emancipation.    A thin line separates the sublime from the silly. But instead of treading it carefully, we trample on it and make a mess of our prospect of ‘moksha’.     The play ‘Behind The Shadow’ abounds in tyrannical and tragic characters who highlight the plight of human beings in general. We keep getting into the monotonous and miserable cycle of time and a set of characters keep returning to our life in regular intervals. The play underlines this absurdity as well. 

About the Author

Sankar prasad Tripathy ,is a name to reckon with ,the cultural circle of odisha, the eastern province of India. He has written numerous plays in odiya, the regional language of the province, spoken by more than forty million people and has active in the regional cultural circle for more than three decades. Acknowledging his contribution to films, television, radio and theater the Odisha Government has fated him with state sahitya academy award a prestigious state level award for literary contribution.