It was in 2005 when for the first time doyen of Modern Indian Theatre, H Kanhailal from Manipur organised a workshop at Rampur village, Goalpara distrct and emphasized the potential of Sukracharya’s visualization. Under his guidance, to bring every artist’s excellence at par, Sukracharya, apart from constructing the performance arena inside the Sal jungle, also established the Badungduppa Kala Kendra with hostel facilities, separately for boys and girls. Artists residing there take part in different activities apart from the regular rehearsal. “The initial days were too difficult,” recollects Sukracharjya, “when I planned to create Badungduppa along with my actors (the local youths), it was easier said than done to convince the village elders and relative to share the vision these youths had in mind.” Of course, Sukracharjya defends as says, “Time is such, Benil Da³(As he often addresses me) with the overarching shift towards the city nowadays who would have understood what the hell are you going to do here in the village. But now things are changing.⁴Badungduppa is now a name that is creating national news headlines.⁵

 In this techno-cratic age, when people do not pay attention to the wonders of creation, nature and they contaminate natural resources, Badungduppa stands as an experiment, when it is our utmost duty to revitalize the relationship between human beings and nature. Badungduppa stands an example of how sustainable development is possible with close coordination with nature, and that also gives on the one impetus to create an art that rings with the resonance of ‘universality’. The title of an article about Badungduppa in news daily rightly says, “Acting Natural”. Ascribing to this philosophy, the structures of Badungduppa Kala Kendra are also made of environment-friendly thatches and bamboo, which is in common usage in the villages. The whole environment is build to provide the artists with avenues of close association with nature. Along with regular rehearsals, a walk in the early morning inside the village, and hours-long physical exercises, are a routine course of the artists. Explaining the rehearsal scenario at Badungduppa, Sukracharya says, “The walks in the morning provide them with an opportunity to get attached to nature and village life²…I cannot demand a good performance from them, until and unless they themselves understand the roots of our culture.⁶ 

Here is a person and his team who strive to stay in close contact with nature and its people, but by no means it is a luxury that he and his team is up to. They cannot afford luxury. It is not a luxurious ride ‘far from the madding crowd’, a picnic for a city dweller, a laboratory for research by some avant-garde alumni of any internationally acclaimed theatre institute of repute. Here, the nature, the people and the sense of be marginalized is the force that forged these young theatre practitioners to develop a way to showcase their creativity, which is now recognised world over.  Of course this conviction of creating own language, to tell own stories was initially fuelled by the sense of being ostracized on different levels culture, economy, language, etc. and slowly it gained its own momentum.

Since 2008, every year, Badungduppa organizes a four - day long drama festival titled, Under The Sal Tree. They construct a stage and the gallery with cost- effective and environment-friendly material such bamboo and betel-nut trees; the idea was so unique that not a single tree had to be cut while constructing the stage and the gallery. The modern theatres, within confined spaces of auditoriums and stages painted with artificial light, sound and make up habitually rob