Post script... a life in letters
RANA SIDDIQUI
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The Experimental Theatre production, "Kaifi Aur Main" by Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi, mesmerised the Delhi audience this past week.
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CAPTIVATING The musical play reading "Kaifi Aur Main" received a standing ovation at Kamani auditorium.
Some two years ago, the duo of Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar came to Delhi's Ghalib Academy to present a touching programme in which Shabana read from letters written by Akhtar's mother Safia Akhtar to his father Jan Nisar Akhtar.
The letters not only revealed the literary tastes of Safiabut also the turbulence India was going through at the time of the Partition. This immensely successful programme may have somewhere laid the foundation for the current experimental theatre the duo presented in New Delhi's Kamani auditorium this past week.
This time it comprised a play titled "Kaifi Aur Main" which was originally meant to pay tribute to Kaifi Azmi and Shaukat (parents of Shabana Azmi).
In the play Shabana as Shaukat, read out extracts from letters and memoirs of Shaukat, while Javed Akhtar, as Kaifi, read out portions of Kaifi's writings, poems, letters and memoirs. Here, the play reading, which is actually a traditional form of Indian theatre, was provided a novel touch by the selection of ghazals and nazms penned by Kaifi for films and otherwise, interspersed between readings. The ghazals were sung by Mumbai-based ghazal singer Jaswinder SinghSingh's soulful voice was a perfect complement to the readings, besides providing emotional respite during charged scenes.
Framing life
The extracts ranged from playful to emotional, rebellious to sorrowful, covering 55 years of the duo's life together. Right from the first meeting to the blossoming of love, then marriage and facing life's challenges together, till the final parting when Shaukat was left alone after Kaifi's death, the play provided a spellbinding narrative, interwoven with ghazals.
The incidents granted an insight into both Shaukat's prolific pen and Kaifi's academic prowess and activist leanings. The turbulent times of the pre-Partition days, the poet's revolutionary writings that unnerved the British rulers, his liberal views on women's rights, association with the Hindi film industry and his courage to take up cudgels for his village despite failing health, all formed a picture of the couple's life and times.
Take the incident in which Kaifi indirectly expresses his love for Shaukat. He comes home and asks for water. After sipping several bowlfuls of water from a pitcher, he says, "Thoda aur" leaving her gazing at him with surprise. To which he says, "Abhi pyas nahi bujhi," and to quote Shaukat... "Aur main sharmaa ke kamre mein bhaag gayi". The reading follows Singh's ghazal "Tumhari zulf ke saye mein sham kar loonga", and so on.
The writings laced with hilarious situations also mocked at how film songs were written later and the tunes made beforehand, how a young Kaifi's poetic skills were tested before stalwarts at a mushaira, how an egotist Shaukat decides to take Sardar Jafri's autograph first and in return earns a "bad couplet" in her autograph book from a jealous Kaifi, and so on.
The evening was organised by Sangita Jindal, Founder and Chairperson of Jindal South West Foundation.
The show was anchored by ghazal singer Peenaz Masani. Javed Akhtar's coffee-table book aptly titled "Tarkash Ke Paanch Teer", a compilation of five poems from his famous anthology "Tarkash", was also released.
Delhi definitely needs more such evenings to relive its glorious literary and musical past.
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