In the year 1967 when the Hippie movement was at
its peak, many youngsters were attracted towards it for its openness and its
rebellious approach. But hardly any youngster looked into its philosophy. They
ignored its history. They only had ‘flower power’ and ‘rock’ to inspire them. No
one bothered about its origin, development or its consequences.
Ron Jones, a history
teacher realized this as a crisis situation and tried to make his students
understand the consequences pertaining to such ignorance and arrogance. He
attempts at attracting their attention towards historical events, but his
students seem to be least interested. He then decides to conduct an experiment
which later became famous as the ‘Wave’ movement.
Jones’ idea was to expose his students to how ignorance can plunge human
society into complete chaos. His experiment proves to be highly effective and
gradually overwhelms the entire city. He then realizes that he himself has
turned into a fascist leader. He calls his students to shatter the spell. He
makes them understand that it was their ignorance which inspired him to conduct
that experiment and lead them to that extreme stage.
Later, this interesting experiment inspired a German playwright and a theatre
therapist, Reinhold Tritt. He adapted Ron Jones’ entire experiment into a play
in German titled “Die Welle”, meaning ‘The Wave’. This play is a Hindi
translation of Reinhold Tritt’s “Die Welle” by Rakesh Kaushik.
