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Photo: S. R. Raghunathan

Mesmerising performance Uday Chandra, Juhi Babbar and Tom Alter at the poetry reading session

That’s why Ghalib endures. Born as Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan, although he’s better known by his ‘nom de plume,’ the Urdu poet’s work has survived for more than a century, even if it hasn’t exactly thrived. In an attempt to remind people about how timeless his work really is, Cyrus Dastur — a well known director in the alternative entertainment scene in Mumbai — decided to repackage traditional Ghalib ghazals for a contemporary urban audience.

The result was a spectacular evening at the Taj Coromandel ballroom, lit with flickering candles, brightened with luxurious drapes in bursts of red, green, purple and orange and scented with fragrant smoke from hookahs, set between mattresses laid out on the floor for guests. Girls dressed like court dancers wound strings of jasmine around the guests’ wrists and waiters wearing turbans walked about with heavy silver trays. All very atmospheric, even if the society girls found it difficult to sit cross legged in stilettos, and lolling on cushions all evening turned out to be far more picturesque than comfortable.

Fortunately, Cyrus’s rather brave experiment worked. Ghalib clearly communicates with contemporary audiences as well as he did in a completely different setting more than a lifetime ago. “This is the work of a living legend. Even 150 years after he wrote his last poem, such large crowds have got together in spite of such bad weather just to enjoy his work,” said Cyrus, as the rain came down in buckets outside. Perfect weather, actually for sombre Ghalib.

“He was at the height of his poetic power in the mid 19th Century…” said Tom Alter, the well-known stage and movie actor, adding, “he lived a life of great sorrow. He and his wife had 8 children, and none lived beyond two months. Ghalib himself lived and died in debt.”

In a mesmerising performance, Alter and Juhi Babbar, (daughter of legendary theatre personality Nadeera Zaheer Babbar and film star Raj Babbar) took turns reading out the poem and translation (done by Alter), while talented Uday Chandra hummed, strummed the tempura and sang along with them. Although some of the poetry was rather complicated, and as Alter himself admitted, some of the translation was not absolutely adequate, the essence of Ghalib did come through powerfully. Babbar and Alter work well together, he’s self-contained and composed, only linking eyes with the audience to explain a particularly difficult passage. She’s effervescent and expressive, making eye contact and reciting passages with obvious glee. The fact that all three clearly loved the work they were performing made it easy for the audience to share their enthusiasm, even if they couldn’t fully comprehend it.

“Ghalib believed he would be famous after he died… He spoke not only of anguished love, but also philosophy and the travails of life,” said Alter, adding “he had a tremendous sense of humour. He made fun of religion, politics but most of all himself.”

He concluded, “We’re trying to increase the passion and love for this man’s poetry. He’s been called the Shakespeare of Urdu poetry. Perhaps Shakespeare should be called the Ghalib of English theatre…”

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