SPOTLIGHT
A TOPICAL TALE OF TRAUMA AND DISPLACEMENT
Asghar Wajahat’s play Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya O Jamyai Nai (One who has not seen Lahore has not been born) is set in 1947, just after the partition of India.
By SHAGORIKA EASWAR
You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. This is one of those sayings that applies to so many situations in our lives and is trotted out so often that it loses meaning.
But we believe it, as we forget how many times we do choose family – specially those of us who move from place to place, from one country to another as immigrants, as refugees. We find and make new families in the places we put down new roots in.
Asghar Wajahat’s Hindustani play Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya O Jamyai Nai (One who has not seen Lahore has not been born) was written in the 1980s. Set in 1947, just after the partition of India, it is the story of a Muslim family that migrates from Lucknow to Lahore and is allotted a haveli (mansion) vacated by a departing Hindu family. Except that it is not vacant. A Hindu lady discovered living upstairs refuses to leave, she is waiting for her son who left home in the middle of a riot to return.
Translated into Gujarati by Sharifa Vijaliwala, it was brought to Maja Prentice Theatre in Mississauga (with English surtitles), by Sawitri, the company that has enlivened the theatre scene in the GTA for just over two decades with works from established as well as emerging playwrights “in all the languages of India, including English” as founder and artistic director Jasmine Sawant says.
The announcement before the play began included a brief description of the partition of India by Cyrill Radcliffe, and the mayhem that followed. It was made by Parul Nanavaty, who just happens to be the great-great granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi. She touched upon the current Israel-Gaza conflict as a reminder of how war continues to displace millions and disrupt lives. As she spoke in Gujarati, a suggestion that having that also translated into English would have made the message available to more members of the audience.
According to Wikipedia, Lahore was first performed by Naya Theatre under the direction of Habib Tanvir, who staged the play in Karachi, Lahore, Sydney, New York, Dubai and all over India. The play has also been performed by Ank Theatre group under the direction of Dinesh Thakur and by several other theater groups in various Indian regional languages.
Its Canadian avatar was directed by Naimesh Nanavaty, co-directed by Raina Desai, and produced by Nitin Sawant. One of the biggest productions by Sawitri, the multi-member cast included Akhil Pandya, Bhairavi Asher, Dhruv Mehta, Harish Athale, Harsh Prajapati, Jay Bhavsar, Jay Pandya, Jasmine Sawant, Kinnery Ganatra, Mazahir Rahim, Meeka Shah, Milan Upadhyay, Parimal Kotak, Prem Vora, Sachin Trivedi, Sakshi Modi, Shruti Shah, Sunil Lariya and Vivek Joshi.
A standout performance by Jasmine Sawant had the audience breaking into spontaneous applause. As she stood her ground as the lady of the mansion and said, “I will not leave this house until my son Ratanlal returns,” in the tender moments she shared with the occupier Sikandar Mirza’s young daughter, Tanno, but specially in the scene when she broke down in the end and wept, saying her leaving the home would ensure the safety of the Mirza family.
Shruti Shah, as Sikandar Mirza’s wife, went effortlessly from the conniving woman who wants to throw the old lady out to one who cares for her safety and will let no harm come to her.
A bond develops between her and Mai as they learn names of vegetables in each other’s languages and describe the merits of Lahore and Lucknow with love and longing. It’s not lost upon the audience that while one left her place of birth, the other has lost hers even though she is physically still present in the city.
Mazahir Rahim in a powerful performance as the maulvi preaching peace and the real message of the Quran tells the mob they can do as they will with the dead who are beyond pain, but that their actions will have a lasting effect on their own lives.
Akhil Pandya as the shayar who observes human frailties and describes them in a line or two, received appreciative wah-wahs. Aaye hain is gali mein toh patthar hi le chalein. He got the body language of a poet pat. I just wish he had paid a little more attention to the pronunciation of words like gham, phir and phool, which came out more like gam, fir and fool.
In a classic depiction of good and evil existing among us in equal parts, while desire for monetary gain and dogma drives a local pehelwan to threaten to remove the old lady, there are many who embrace her as Mai, or mother.
An emphasis on details was evident in the simple sets, in everything from the aluminum kettle (set on a “flame” that glowed!) to the ubiquitous aluminum bhagona in which tea is brewed in at countless tea stalls across the subcontinent.
Old film songs like Afsana likh rahi hoon dil-e-beqaraar ka and Ek bangla bane nyaara played in the background. The songs are such an indelible part of Hindi film music’s history that it’s easy to forget the year they were first released. A quick check on my phone revealed the first was released in 1947 and the second, in 1937. The team ticked the box for accuracy, too!
The young man at the box office apologized for being unable to accommodate a request to switch seats. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to sit in the assigned seats – we’re full,” he said.
A packed house on a cold, February night for what is sometimes given short shrift as “community theatre”? How wonderful is that?
About trauma, displacement, the search for home, Lahore is, at its heart, about family – the ones we are born into and the ones we gather around us. As Tanno asks at one point, if we can all live together harmoniously under one roof, why can’t we do so in one country?
It’s as timely a message today as it was when it was written.