Showing posts with label Saif Hasan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saif Hasan. Show all posts
Review: GARDISH MEIN TAARE by FENIL SETA
7:52 AM
The last year’s release The Xpose was a debacle and senseless but it made one thing clear – if executed and scripted well, one can come up with a great product with the backdrop of 50s and 60s stars and their scandalous and tumultuous lives. Saif Hyder Hasan’s latest play Gardish Mein Taare is also based in a similar world and attempts to tell the tale of a filmmaker-actor and his wife, a singer – both are which loosely inspired from Guru Dutt and Geeta Dutt respectively.
The story: Devdutt Bose (Arif Zakaria) has delivered a successful film Bhookh and has put all his efforts in making his next film, Patjad Ki Awaaz. He has had a love marriage with Bhavna (Sonali Kulkarni) and as time passes, cracks develop in their relationship. Bhavna is amused that the world sees Devdutt as sensitive and kind-hearted as in her opinion, he is ruthless, rigid and somebody who has clipped her wings. How both fall from grace in getting even with each other when all they wanted was to love and be with one another forms the crux of the story.
Gardish Mein Taare is 80 minutes long and unlike Hasan’s last play Ek Mulaqat which had too much of Urdu and Punjabi dialogues, this one is easy to comprehend, at least for someone like me, as the dialogues are in Hindi. The writing (Summana Ahmad) is simple but is quite sharp and makes a lot of impact. Just like Ek Mulaqat, Gardish Mein Taare too has just two actors despite that there are 3 more significant characters in the play. These characters are not shown and only their voices can be heard while Devdutt or Bhavna respond to them and beautifully pretend that that person is standing next to them. The best part in this regard is when Bhavna gets interrogated by the cop and she wonderfully throws her arm ‘around him’! I don’t know if something of this sort often happens in plays but it made for a great, unique experience! The content meanwhile is quite strong and even shocking at places and that definitely adds to the impact. But the best is definitely reserved for the finale. The final play of words between Devdutt and Bhavna is quite touching and heartfelt. The director and writers doesn’t try to judge or conclude who is right or wrong and whether anyone is right or wrong. Despite being based in the 60s, the play is relevant even today as it throws light on what often goes wrong in relationships.
Gardish Mein Taare rests not only the superb writing but also performances. Arif Zakaria has a terrific dialogue delivery and comes up with his most brilliant performance. Watch out for him in the confrontational scenes and when he is angry – he rocks the whole theatre with the manner in which he threw his voice! There are portions where you’ll hate his character and there are portions where you’ll deeply sympathize and this marks the success of his bravura performance. Sonali Kulkarni too gives quite a powerful performance. In fact, her character has some interesting nuances and due to that and her terrific act, there are places where she even overpowers Arif! For instance, the scene where she gets drunk during the interrogation or when she comes home fully sloshed – she’s so amazing! And to top it, she even sings beautifully!
Director Saif Hyder Hasan has now become a master when it comes to challenging, one act, two actor, period drama plays! Also, the research is terrific and the manner in which he incorporated fictional elements and real-life incidents make for an entertaining watch. The Yusuf portion is just amazing – see it to believe it! Also, the humour infused in between prevents the play from becoming too dark and depressing.
On the whole, Gardish Mein Taare is a work of art inspired by two of the most prominent film personalities of yesteryear. The content is entertaining and also shocking at places but is something that everyone can relate to. The play ends on a very justified note and will surely be appreciated by audiences. The story, script and dialogues are upto the mark while Arif Zakaria and Sonali Kulkarni rock the show with their award-winning performances. The premiere show of the play was held at NCPA, Mumbai on January 26, 2015 and has got an encouraging response. Definitely, this play is a ‘lambi race ka ghoda’. Go for it, if you enjoy such kind of entertainment!
My rating - **** out of 5!
In Gardish Mein Taare, characters aren't classified as good, bad or ugly-Sonali Kulkarni
8:50 AM
Sonali Kulkarni, who essays a character inspired by Geeta Dutt in an upcoming play, on the role theatre plays in her life
Reema Gehi (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 4, 2015)
The last few years have been particularly exciting for Sonali Kulkarni. The 40-year-old actress, who made her film debut in Girish Karnad-starrer, Cheluvi (1992) was part of a National award-winning Marathi film, Deool (2011), the record-breaking Singham (2011) and Gyan Correa's The Good Road (2013) which was India's entry to the Oscars. In fact, currently, her Marathi-film, Dr Prakash Baba Amte: The Real Hero is running to houseful shows in cinema halls. "So, as an actor," she says, "I am deeply satisfied."
As she settles into a chair at a coffee shop in Khar, she reflects, "I was naive when I started off. But I feel my naivety has paid off. After my breakthrough in Hindi cinema, I never thought that now since I am a commercial star, I mustn't act in regional films or not go back to theatre. For me, the role was always more important, irrespective of the medium."
But theatre holds a special place in her heart. And she's only too happy to get back on stage with Saif Hyder Hasan's upcoming play, Gardish Mein Taare, which opens at the 1,100-seater Jamshed Bhabha Auditorium, NCPA, on January 26.
The play traces the paths of the two protagonists, Devdutt Bose (played by Arif Zakaria) and Bhavana, essayed by Kulkarni, inspired by the lives of the cinema genius Guru Dutt and his songstress wife, Geeta Dutt. The play, she adds, is a tribute to the creatively volatile period of Hindi cinema in the 1950s.
"What I appreciate most about this play is that the director is not trying to classify the characters as good, bad or ugly. He's seeing them as creative beings," says Kulkarni. "It's important for the aam janta to understand what creative souls go through, because they have passions and pursuits that don't match regular, mundane lives."
As far as her creative pursuits go, "I have never had a plan," she admits. "My calling is instinctive."
Kulkarni, who launched her theatre production, Sokul, in 2013, with a Marathi play, White Lily Ani Night Rider, is largely drawing her attention to the stagecraft.
She says she is perplexed by the quick, seamless transitions most of her actor colleagues are making across different entertainment mediums. "I have been slow in comparison," she says. When she participated in a reality dance competition in 2007, she dedicated six months to learning dance. "I am not the sort to make swift jumps," she says.
For Kulkarni, theatre is equal to revisiting ground zero. "It helps me understand my own pace and lets me find my own breath and balance."
In fact, while shooting for Dil Chahta Hai, Kulkarni was a part of Makarand Deshpande's theatre production Basant Ka Teesra Yauvan. She had the shoot dates adjusted to accommodate the show.
Kulkarni credits her intense involvement and dedication to the craft to late thespian, Satyadev Dubey. She was 16 when she first met Dubey, at a workshop he conducted in her hometown, Pune. She calls herself "a beautiful bag of complexes," until she met Dubey."I believed that I wasn't good, pretty, fair or rich enough. It was Dubeyji who told me that until I don't accept and like myself, people will have doubts about me. Theatre is a full-shot, not a close-up, he said," she narrates.
She calls his workshops "unique". Balancing an iPad on her head, she says, "It was commonplace for Dubeyji to make actors place light chairs on their heads to teach them how to walk straight, hold a pencil in their mouths and speak and scream when they'd ask nonsensical questions."
One such query she asked was what one must do if they don't like their voice. It took some courage, she says. "Dubeyji made me repeat the same question a 100 times. I broke into a sweat and trembled, but kept asking and he didn't let me complete the sentence because he kept insisting to ask in my 'own' voice. At one point, I took a deep breath, and determined to finish it, I screamed, 'agar kissiko apni awaaz acchi nahi lagti hai, toh woh kya karein?'. He then said that's my voice and made me realise that if I speak in my pitch and breath, I'd able to convey what I have to say truthfully."
Kulkarni clings on to this influence Dubey's workshops made on her young mind. "I will not put up a fight to claim my share in my parents' estate, but I'll fight to be considered Dubeyji's prodigy," she laughs.
Playwright Vijay Tendulkar was another maverick who made an impression. "I got to know him because my brother Sandesh dramatised some of his newspaper columns into a play. He was someone who reinforced fearlessness in me," she says, fondly.
"He urged me to stop being a good girl. He told me to open the cage and learn to fly. He allowed people to dream," she says.
By her own admission, "No other theatre school could reinforce the lessons these two geniuses taught me."
Review: EK MULAQAT by FENIL SETA
10:25 AM
Saif Hyder Hasan had showcased his magic with Aaine Ke Sau Tukde featuring a lone Shweta Tiwari playing almost dozens of characters on screen. He is now back with another challenging venture Ek Mulaqat, starring the talented Shekhar Suman and Deepti Naval. Based on the unrequited romance of noted lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi and eminent writer-poet Amrita Pritam, Ek Mulaqat attempts to depict a tête-à-tête that happens between the lovers but in a musical format. As expected, it makes for a great unique experience and definitely deserves a watch!
The story: On a cold winter night, Amrita Pritam (Deepti Naval) is sitting on the terrace of her house in Delhi when two strange things occur. She gets a sudden trunk call from Bombay, making her wonder who it can be, as she doesn’t know anyone out there except Sahir Ludhianvi (Shekhar Suman). Before she could answer, Sahir appears in front of her. The two then indulge in a witty play of words and poems-shayaris which brings to the fore their love for each other, the loneliness, the anger and a lot more.
Ek Mulaqat isn’t an in-your-face experience. The play is laced with poems, shayaris and a smart play of words and one need to be very attentive and devote their full concentration to understand the layered meaning. It was a novel experience for me at least and hence, I took a couple of minutes to get into the world that Saif Hyder Hasan was trying to put forward. The latecomers coming in and creating a slight nuisance (despite the play starting 20 minutes late) contributed in breaking my attention even more. But adamant I was, I soon became a part of Sahir-Amrita’s beautiful conversation and from there, the play becomes an experience to savour. One of the riskiest things attempted by the makers is to incorporate songs like Abhi Na Jao Chodkar, Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein etc but with a change in tune. These are iconic songs and such an experiment could have gone wrong. But thankfully, it doesn’t and it adds to the magic! The climax gives a jolt, though it was anticipated.
Words will fail to do justice to the performances of Shekhar Suman and Deepti Naval. This is not just another play – the actor needed to mouth the poems and shayaris written by the legends that they are portraying and it needed to be done with the right emotion. And both the actors come out with flying colours. They look brilliant together and complement each other very well. Viewers will see both of them in a new light and with lot of respect and admiration after watching the play!
Director Saif Hyder Hasan too deserves appreciation for designing and directing this one-of-its-kind drama. A lot of research has gone in bringing alive the lives of the legends and it shows. Sahir and Amrita are not just talking about their unrequited love, but also about partition, gender inequality, marriage, whisky, cigarettes and a lot more and each of these are beautifully incorporated into their musical conversation. Nothing looks out of place. The humour element also comes out very well.
On the whole, Ek Mulaqat is a well-made venture and is worth the hype and expectations surrounding it. The use of words, poems, shayaris, the direction and of course Shekhar Suman and Deepti Naval’s bravura performance come together to provide an experience to savour and remember for a long time! For someone like me who’s not much into poetry, the first few minutes were indeed quite struggling but once you get acquainted with the world that’s created in the play (which happens soon enough), the play turns out to be quite impressive and most importantly, engaging. Hats off to the makers for coming up with the play the way they wanted to and didn’t attempt to simplify so as to make it more mainstream. The play will surely have a great run and will attract hordes of people. Make sure you book your tickets in advance!
My rating - **** out of 5!
When Sahir died, Yashji said, 'How will I make my films now?'-Shekhar Suman
9:12 AM
Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; August 17, 2014)
Bombay Times presents Ek
Mulaqat, a musical that brings you the unrequited love story of Amrita
Pritam with Sahir Ludhianvi. A love story of two of India's most famous
poets who got married only through words. A lot was unsaid in this union
of two beautiful minds. They shared a bond, where the binding
was their work. It was actually just almost a love story, where they
fell in love with each other's minds more than anything else. Over an
exclusive conversation with Deepti Naval and Shekhar Suman, we bring
you how they got to playing these legendary figures and the uncanny
connection they had with them. Excerpts:
CONVERSATION WITH DEEPTI NAVAL:
You will be portraying Amrita Pritam on stage. She died in 2005. Did you know her in real life?
I was introduced to her first in 1978 through Basu Bhattacharya, who was then wanting to make a film on one of her novels Nagmani with me in it. Basuda never got down to making that film, but he told her how I wrote poetry. I recited it very candidly to her and she took a liking to what I was writing and called her publisher and said, 'Yeh ladki toh achcha likhti hai, toh iska kitaab chaapo.' So, it was because of her that Lamha Lamha came out in 1981. Then every time I would go to Delhi, I would make it a point to meet her. I have known her over the years. I wanted to pay my own tribute to her and was in the process of recording some of her Punjabi poems in my voice, when coincidentally Saif Haider Hasan, the director of Ek Mulaqat wrote to me offering me this role. I jumped at it.
What was Amrita Pritam like in real life?
She was a very gentle person with a lot of depth obviously as she wrote about life, living and interpreting it at the same time. That is what her life was. She lived to write about life. And that was extremely inspiring for me. She would always tell me to write in Punjabi. She was very soft as a person and would constantly smoke and would be comfortably sitting on her bed in a reclining position whenever I met her. There was a two-seater couch next to her bed, where I would always go and perch myself.
She would look at me and chat about life. She was very candid about her life, talk easily about things that happened to her and mattered to her. Just today, I was searching for all the books she gave me over time and realised that I had 11 of her books autographed by her. I always wanted to play her on cinema as I have known her so closely. The last time I saw her was about a year before she died. I had taken some theatre friends from Pakistan to meet her and they wanted to get themselves clicked with her. They asked her if they could take a picture with her, but she was reluctant to get photographed. She was a pretty woman who was attractive in her own way and was not a typical Amazonian Punjabi jat woman. She wouldn't hesitate to talk about Sahir Ludhianvi as there was so much of her work surrounded around him. She was a kind of person who would never camouflage anything.
She was a very honest woman, who lived her life with great honesty and I admired that about her. She was candid and unapologetic who translated all her experiences about life into her work. I relate with that aspect of her personality. She was very warm and endearing. In the later years of her life, she moved into her quest for spirituality. She would be considered a feminist just for the fact that in those years, in the 30s, the time she was growing up, she walked away from her marriage as she thought there wasn't enough passion in it. So, for a woman to let the world know that she would not toe the line and found new definitions of life, was admirable. She was attracted to Sahir sahab's mind and his poetry. She would subtly go into his poetry while talking to me and say, 'ki line hai' (in Punjabi). She was really not concerned about what people would say.
She was more concerned about being honest to her work and was interested in what she experienced and felt. She knew her place in the intellectual world and all her novels were women-centric. Even though I grew up in Amritsar, I used to find Punjabi very crude till I met Amritaji. I remember her looking at me with her narrow eyes and I wrote a poem for her: Your face is a metaphor, for living in your eyes, I learn language. She read it and immediately said to me, 'Write it in Punjabi.' Even though I fully well knew the chapter of Sahir sahab in her life, I was always fascinated by her other equation in life, her companion Imroz sahab, who was 10 years younger to her. He worshipped her and was so devoted to her.
You are such a fine actor, but never did theatre. Why?
I am petrified. I am so fascinated by people who can go on stage and rattle their lines two hours non-stop on stage.
Do you have any influence of theatre in your life?
I grew up in New York and went to college there, so Manhattan and Broadway is a part of my upbringing. I did study American theatre and would run around all those blocks, go and see a play, come back and make and exchange notes and then have discussions on it. I studied photography with painting as my major.
Surprisingly, the only thing I did not study was acting.
How does it feel to play Amrita Pritam?
I feel a deep connect. I keep thinking if I will be able to play her and she is constantly with me. We were rehearsing her signature poem, Ajj Akhaan Waaris Shah Nu about what she wrote about the post-Partition trauma. It was an emotional experience for me and I broke down while performing it. I guess I desired too much to play Amrita Pritam in my life. When you desire something too much, I guess it happens.
Talk about Shekhar playing Sahir Ludhianvi?
It's so uncanny that when I took to writing poetry, I wanted to write in Urdu and my favourite three authors were Sahir Ludhianvi, Ghalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. I felt that only Shekhar can play Sahir as you need to be able to recite and have the correct lehza and pronunciation and command over Urdu that he has.
CONVERSATION WITH SHEKHAR SUMAN:
What does it mean for you to be portraying Sahir Ludhianvi on stage?
I have myriad reasons for doing this play. I started my career as a theatre actor in a repertoire company and have always been drawn to literature. Also, I have always been a rebel, who has always been an anti-establishment guy and find similarities between Sahir and me as he too was a rebel. He was nomadic, a maverick and I find myself within me the same sentiments being echoed. He was my favourite even as a kid, when I did not even have a hang of Urdu, but someone presented me his book Parchhaiyan. I knew reading it that it was something very beautiful and it was my prized possession till I lost it somewhere in the middle, while moving from Delhi to Mumbai and then within Mumbai, moving so many houses. I asked so many people, but could not find a copy of it. Recently Saif, our director, got me a cheap edition of it from Old Delhi, but that has so many errors that I landed up making corrections in it. I jumped at the idea of playing Sahir as the whole world is in love with Sahir just as I have been. I love the Urdu tehzeeb and zabaan that is redundant and sunk in oblivion now. I admire and love him for the fact that he was a jilted lover.
Every boy who is growing up wants to be a Devdas and wants to be a jilted lover. Other than the fact that Sahir was commitment-phobic while I am not, I find a lot of similarity between me and him. Also, to be able to work with Deepti, who is one of the finest actresses and coming to theatre with this, is fantastic. I also feel that theatre needs to be promoted, as the emphasis on language is just not happening and less and less of good theatre is being made today. Also, the satisfaction of performing live on stage and that too playing Sahir, is one of my strong dreams that has come true, thanks to Deepti, who recommended my name. I started meeting people who knew Sahir and learnt that he suffered from Oedipus Complex. His mother had been abused by his father. He was obsessed with his mother and possibly that is why he found it difficult to commit himself to another woman.
What he wrote was intellectually far superior to his contemporaries. Sahir changed the way you look at things. He was a rebel and his lyrics reflected that. He had the guts and courage to say things that were anti-establishment. And so was Amrita, who also did not care a fig about what people said. He was also a chain smoker and a voracious drinker and died early because of that. They said that Sahir was a short-tempered, hot-tempered angry young man. He would shout and be abusive, but the other side was so poetic and beautiful. If he wrote, that was the end of the story and no filmmaker could ever make him change that. If people did not understand, he would say too bad as he wanted them to be educated about new literary words. He worked with Guru Dutt, Dev Anand and wrote for all BR Chopra and Yash Chopra films and I believe when Sahir died, Yashji said, 'How will I make my films now?' As a kid, I remember watching Amitabh Bachchan sahab narrate Sahir's most famous nazm 'Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hai' and could never imagine that one day I will be narrating that myself on stage.
Ek Mulaqat brought to you by Bombay Times will be staged at Rangsharda Auditorium on August 23, 7.30 pm. Complimentary invites available at the Times of India building, Dr D.N. Road, VT on a first-come-first-serve basis from 11 am to 5 pm.
CONVERSATION WITH DEEPTI NAVAL:
You will be portraying Amrita Pritam on stage. She died in 2005. Did you know her in real life?
I was introduced to her first in 1978 through Basu Bhattacharya, who was then wanting to make a film on one of her novels Nagmani with me in it. Basuda never got down to making that film, but he told her how I wrote poetry. I recited it very candidly to her and she took a liking to what I was writing and called her publisher and said, 'Yeh ladki toh achcha likhti hai, toh iska kitaab chaapo.' So, it was because of her that Lamha Lamha came out in 1981. Then every time I would go to Delhi, I would make it a point to meet her. I have known her over the years. I wanted to pay my own tribute to her and was in the process of recording some of her Punjabi poems in my voice, when coincidentally Saif Haider Hasan, the director of Ek Mulaqat wrote to me offering me this role. I jumped at it.
What was Amrita Pritam like in real life?
She was a very gentle person with a lot of depth obviously as she wrote about life, living and interpreting it at the same time. That is what her life was. She lived to write about life. And that was extremely inspiring for me. She would always tell me to write in Punjabi. She was very soft as a person and would constantly smoke and would be comfortably sitting on her bed in a reclining position whenever I met her. There was a two-seater couch next to her bed, where I would always go and perch myself.
She would look at me and chat about life. She was very candid about her life, talk easily about things that happened to her and mattered to her. Just today, I was searching for all the books she gave me over time and realised that I had 11 of her books autographed by her. I always wanted to play her on cinema as I have known her so closely. The last time I saw her was about a year before she died. I had taken some theatre friends from Pakistan to meet her and they wanted to get themselves clicked with her. They asked her if they could take a picture with her, but she was reluctant to get photographed. She was a pretty woman who was attractive in her own way and was not a typical Amazonian Punjabi jat woman. She wouldn't hesitate to talk about Sahir Ludhianvi as there was so much of her work surrounded around him. She was a kind of person who would never camouflage anything.
She was a very honest woman, who lived her life with great honesty and I admired that about her. She was candid and unapologetic who translated all her experiences about life into her work. I relate with that aspect of her personality. She was very warm and endearing. In the later years of her life, she moved into her quest for spirituality. She would be considered a feminist just for the fact that in those years, in the 30s, the time she was growing up, she walked away from her marriage as she thought there wasn't enough passion in it. So, for a woman to let the world know that she would not toe the line and found new definitions of life, was admirable. She was attracted to Sahir sahab's mind and his poetry. She would subtly go into his poetry while talking to me and say, 'ki line hai' (in Punjabi). She was really not concerned about what people would say.
She was more concerned about being honest to her work and was interested in what she experienced and felt. She knew her place in the intellectual world and all her novels were women-centric. Even though I grew up in Amritsar, I used to find Punjabi very crude till I met Amritaji. I remember her looking at me with her narrow eyes and I wrote a poem for her: Your face is a metaphor, for living in your eyes, I learn language. She read it and immediately said to me, 'Write it in Punjabi.' Even though I fully well knew the chapter of Sahir sahab in her life, I was always fascinated by her other equation in life, her companion Imroz sahab, who was 10 years younger to her. He worshipped her and was so devoted to her.
You are such a fine actor, but never did theatre. Why?
I am petrified. I am so fascinated by people who can go on stage and rattle their lines two hours non-stop on stage.
Do you have any influence of theatre in your life?
I grew up in New York and went to college there, so Manhattan and Broadway is a part of my upbringing. I did study American theatre and would run around all those blocks, go and see a play, come back and make and exchange notes and then have discussions on it. I studied photography with painting as my major.
Surprisingly, the only thing I did not study was acting.
How does it feel to play Amrita Pritam?
I feel a deep connect. I keep thinking if I will be able to play her and she is constantly with me. We were rehearsing her signature poem, Ajj Akhaan Waaris Shah Nu about what she wrote about the post-Partition trauma. It was an emotional experience for me and I broke down while performing it. I guess I desired too much to play Amrita Pritam in my life. When you desire something too much, I guess it happens.
Talk about Shekhar playing Sahir Ludhianvi?
It's so uncanny that when I took to writing poetry, I wanted to write in Urdu and my favourite three authors were Sahir Ludhianvi, Ghalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. I felt that only Shekhar can play Sahir as you need to be able to recite and have the correct lehza and pronunciation and command over Urdu that he has.
CONVERSATION WITH SHEKHAR SUMAN:
What does it mean for you to be portraying Sahir Ludhianvi on stage?
I have myriad reasons for doing this play. I started my career as a theatre actor in a repertoire company and have always been drawn to literature. Also, I have always been a rebel, who has always been an anti-establishment guy and find similarities between Sahir and me as he too was a rebel. He was nomadic, a maverick and I find myself within me the same sentiments being echoed. He was my favourite even as a kid, when I did not even have a hang of Urdu, but someone presented me his book Parchhaiyan. I knew reading it that it was something very beautiful and it was my prized possession till I lost it somewhere in the middle, while moving from Delhi to Mumbai and then within Mumbai, moving so many houses. I asked so many people, but could not find a copy of it. Recently Saif, our director, got me a cheap edition of it from Old Delhi, but that has so many errors that I landed up making corrections in it. I jumped at the idea of playing Sahir as the whole world is in love with Sahir just as I have been. I love the Urdu tehzeeb and zabaan that is redundant and sunk in oblivion now. I admire and love him for the fact that he was a jilted lover.
Every boy who is growing up wants to be a Devdas and wants to be a jilted lover. Other than the fact that Sahir was commitment-phobic while I am not, I find a lot of similarity between me and him. Also, to be able to work with Deepti, who is one of the finest actresses and coming to theatre with this, is fantastic. I also feel that theatre needs to be promoted, as the emphasis on language is just not happening and less and less of good theatre is being made today. Also, the satisfaction of performing live on stage and that too playing Sahir, is one of my strong dreams that has come true, thanks to Deepti, who recommended my name. I started meeting people who knew Sahir and learnt that he suffered from Oedipus Complex. His mother had been abused by his father. He was obsessed with his mother and possibly that is why he found it difficult to commit himself to another woman.
What he wrote was intellectually far superior to his contemporaries. Sahir changed the way you look at things. He was a rebel and his lyrics reflected that. He had the guts and courage to say things that were anti-establishment. And so was Amrita, who also did not care a fig about what people said. He was also a chain smoker and a voracious drinker and died early because of that. They said that Sahir was a short-tempered, hot-tempered angry young man. He would shout and be abusive, but the other side was so poetic and beautiful. If he wrote, that was the end of the story and no filmmaker could ever make him change that. If people did not understand, he would say too bad as he wanted them to be educated about new literary words. He worked with Guru Dutt, Dev Anand and wrote for all BR Chopra and Yash Chopra films and I believe when Sahir died, Yashji said, 'How will I make my films now?' As a kid, I remember watching Amitabh Bachchan sahab narrate Sahir's most famous nazm 'Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hai' and could never imagine that one day I will be narrating that myself on stage.
Ek Mulaqat brought to you by Bombay Times will be staged at Rangsharda Auditorium on August 23, 7.30 pm. Complimentary invites available at the Times of India building, Dr D.N. Road, VT on a first-come-first-serve basis from 11 am to 5 pm.
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