At KCC’s laudable birth-centenary homage to Habib Tanvir, two world premieres expressed through their art what most of the speakers did not dare to mention specifically in the most important panel, on his “significance in today’s sociopolitical context”. Let us not forget that 70 years ago, in 1954, he integrated students from Jamia Millia and villagers from Okhla into a staging of Agra Bazar, bridging the urban–rural divide which we still cannot do on equal terms. Let us not forget that 20 years ago, he courageously refused to stop performances of his folktale-based Jamādārin/Pongā Pandit when facing vicious Hindu supremacist attacks. Let us speak up as bravely as he did.
Readers will be forgiven if they think that the photo alongside is of Habib-sahab. In fact, it captures Danish Husain as him in Hoshruba Repertory’s Habibnāmā, which collates his recollections and interviews covering his early career from Raipur to Nagpur to Bombay to Delhi to England and back. It is the best acting by Danish that I have seen, embodying Stanislavskian realism in his looks, slightly hunched posture and soft-spoken lilt and mumble that forced us to hang on his every word, as in real-life conversations with Habib-sahab. For Danish to hold our attention while sitting in more or less one position over 90 minutes, getting up only once, is quite a feat. Purshottam Bhatt and Mohan Sagar lend vibrant support, Danish as director giving himself relief by making them interrupt with full-throated Chhattisgarhi songs and enactment for “Habib’s” appraisal.
He chooses excerpts carefully, exemplifying Habib-sahab’s own raconteur’s expertise, as in the humorous description of Chuni Lal’s movie shows inside a tent. He does not shy away from the three little niggles hampering his romance with Moneeka. He underscores the inspiring lines about humanism irrespective of faith. I suggest that he insert the historic details about Agra Bazar and delete the old-school misinformation ascribing the theory of the three unities to Aristotle. In a neat touch, the production ends abruptly, to indicate that Habib-sahab did not eventually complete the session after pausing it to prepare for his upcoming performance.
The one-hour narrative of Dāstān-e-Ashok-o-Akbar, written by Ashok Lal, revives the parable nature of Dastangoi, not concerning either emperor, but imagining the friendship of a Hindu from Lahore who specializes in Urdu literature at Aligarh Muslim University and a Muslim from Varanasi who specializes in Hindi literature at Banaras Hindu University, who secure teaching appointments in the same college, and father babies born on the same day. An accidental fire results in tragedy. The contemporary moral of the story: one’s DNA does not overrule basic humanity, where a home transcends creed and religion, the kind of statement Habib-sahab would have made.
Unlike the full-fledged theatre of Habibnāmā, Ratna Pathak Shah opts for solo conventional storytelling, the script placed on a notation stand in front of her, into which she often peered for prompting. Even though her tone, expressions and eye contact engage the spectators, we sensed a certain nervousness compounded by stumbling over or searching for words. A regular dāstāngo would have had the entire text by heart, and improvise if required. Here, the Urdu vocabulary seemed hard on her.
7 September 2024