Shahid

Well, I entered the arena through the wrong door. I started off as a student leader in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. Then, the whole world was full of radical student uprisings – in America, Germany, the United Kingdom and everywhere else. I got involved in left-wing student activities and was actively participating in the movement against the Pakistani military ruler general Ayub Khan. I was imprisoned a couple of times, thrown out of university and then bounced back. It was quite an important period in my life. I faced repression in a very physical way, like being beaten up by the police or defying military guns. I was hoping to bring about change in society, if not the world.

And we did manage to dislodge the general. But he was replaced by another military dictator, General Yahya Khan who was even worse because he presided over the dismemberment of the country and liberation of Bangladesh. The way the Pakistani Army and establishment messed up things was unparalleled. Gradually, I also found myself participating in debates. I was elected president of the University Literary Society and started participating in activities of important literary bodies in Lahore.

I was kind of playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Like Mr Hyde, I would participate in massive rallies on the famous Mall Road, making impassioned speeches and raising full-throated slogans. And at the end of the day, I would change into Dr. Jekyll and enter the YMCA Hall on the Mall, next to the Pak Tea House, I would present my short stories or give my critical assessment of poetry presented by literary stalwarts. I was still looking at the world from the socialist angle. But there was a huge difference between the stone-throwing rabble-rousing activity on the Mall, and inside the smoke-filled stuffy YMCA room. Gradually, I began to realise that you need much more than a bag full of stones to throw at the police to change the world. You need to change mindsets or worldviews, to bring about a more permanent, more durable change, not just cosmetic changes, which I had been seeing in those heady years.

In fact, one of the first plays I wrote was called The Third Knock (1970). It was later included in the Oxford University Press Collection of plays. The play is about people living in a small, impoverished locality who are asked to leave because the landlord wants to build a hotel there. But they have nowhere to go. They have no other option. In desperation, they try different ways of convincing the landlord not to evict them by force. When there is no way left, they decide to kill him. In a surrealistic atmosphere, they celebrate. They organise the neighbourhood in a democratic fashion, according to the needs and demands of the people. And when they are settling down in this dream-like freedom, there is a second knock. When the door opens, they see the same landlord, as if nothing has changed. Then they repeat the whole process in a shortened form. They think, maybe we didn't properly kill him the first time, and now we will make sure that he's dead. Then the police come, and everyone is arrested. Only women and a young guy called Bengali are left in the building. Bengali is accused of everything which was going wrong. They try to survive. Then, there is the third knock. That's where the play ends. I wrote the play in 1971, just before East Pakistan separated from Pakistan and became Bangladesh. General Ayub’s first knock was followed by General Yahya’s second knock. There have been several knocks since then; General Zia’s, General Musharraf’s and the score keeps increasing.

I started writing short stories first. Then, I realised that short stories are not dramatic enough to make an impact and I still wanted to change the world or change the society. I was at Punjab University at that time. And we had just finished dislodging dictator Ayub Khan. He resigned suddenly. I had finished my studies, but my adrenaline was still flowing.

I heard Kinnairds College for Women, the fabled girls’ college which every young man wanted to see from inside, was holding a theatre festival and our university was invited. My good friend Sheheryar Rashid, son of the famous Urdu poet Noon Meem Rashid, had joined our university after studying theatre in the US, asked me, If you want to see the Kinnairds from inside, write a play. The offer was too tempting! That’s how I wrote a play based on one of my short stories, Mara Hoa Kutta or The Dead Dog. At the performance there was a young girl Madeeha Gauhar in the audience. Fourteen years later, this young lady met me in London, where I was living as a political exile during the General Zia dictatorship. She asked, you are the one who wrote that play? I said, yes. And we ended up marrying and running Ajoka together. That was Madeeha Gauhar, a firebrand activist and passionate theatre icon.

S

Well, that's another interesting story. I, along with some young people who were also involved in political, left-wing activities, set up a theatre group. We thought that it was important to have a theatre for social and political mobilisation. I was asked to come up with a good name for the group. I spent a couple of days trying different names. Finally, I ended up with this name, which everyone liked. We called it Ajoka Theatre.

We started working on a couple of plays. One was about the debacle in East Pakistan in ‘71. But these were historic and turbulent times. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, a populist leader in West Pakistan Zulfiqar came to power and things were opening up and a democratic setup was shaping up. I got employed by Pakistan Television (PTV) as a producer, which was a dream job for me. PTV was, at that time, one of the few platforms for progressive cultural expression. Leftwing activists like me went in different directions and Ajoka never took off. But the progressive circles knew about this initiative.

Madeeha had known about the Ajoka initiative. When she decided to start a theatre group in the mid-1980s, she called it Ajoka. When we met in London, I was quite amused by this coincidence. I sometimes say that I conceived Ajoka, and Madeeha delivered it.

S

It varies. Basically, I am motivated to write something which is entertaining and socially meaningful. A story which can be told through theatre and has enough ingredients for a good dramatic presentation. The trigger could be anything: a startling newspaper story, a chance meeting with an interesting character or a casual conversation. It could be going back into history in search of important events or important personalities which have been distorted by biased historians and require new interpretation. For example, my play Dara, which you may be familiar with as it was recently produced by London’s National Theatre. Or Bulha, my play on 17th century Sufi poet. My plays on short story writer Manto, freedom fighter Bhagat Singh or celebrated socialist poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. These are important characters from our history, who resisted religious and political oppression. They inspired me to write about their struggle and suffering and highlight how they are relevant to our society today.

Sometimes my stories are based on small incidents. There was a news story in the newspaper about a water carrier and a farmer. The water carrier had two wives and one ox, and the farmer had two oxen and one wife. The farmer’s ox died and he was left with two wives and no ox. On the other hand, the water carrier’s wife died and he was left with two oxen and no wife. They very conveniently swapped their “goods”. The spare wife was given in exchange for the ox. I instantly saw a good play in that story; the symbolic significance, the status of women, or the desperate need for water. How survival sometimes makes morality irrelevant. Inspired by this story, I wrote Kala Mainda Bhes, a two-hour play. Of course, I added other characters such as a feudal spiritual lord and an “outsider” who encouraged the people to defy unjust values and resist oppression. The enchanting folk music and colourful costumes of the region helped to make the play entertaining as well.

Sometimes, I keep these ideas on the back burner like the play about Bulleh Shah, While reading the preface of Tauifiwq Rifat’s Bulleh Shah: A Selection, I came across a remarkable episode. When Bulleh Shah died, he was denied a Muslim funeral prayer because his poetry was considered sacrilegious by the clergy of his native Qasur. He was declared an infidel and had to be buried outside the city limits. That was about 300 years ago. Today his tomb is in the town centre. It has not been moved, but the whole city moved to where Bulleh Shah’s shrine was. The anecdote was so dramatic and meaningful. Suddenly the play dawned on me. I quickly took notes. I was in London and preoccupied with my work for Amnesty International. Eventually, I returned to Pakistan and started writing plays for Ajoka. Those notes on the Bulleh Shah play stayed with me. It took about eight years before I actually got to writing the play. Writing a play on the life of a Sufi was a challenge. But Bulleh Shah was not just a Sufi, he was a rebel, a poet of the people. There was drama of a different kind in his life, his poetry, his mystical journey. When I finished the play, I thought I had met the challenge. But putting it on stage proved to be another challenge. The Arts Council authorities refused to approve the script. They said, this is not a play, it is a biography. They didn't realise that the biography of a Sufi is a great play also. They didn't have the sense that when it is performed and when the Sufi message or practices are visualised, they can make a huge impact on our audiences. And this is precisely what happened. And Bulha became one of my most popular and influential plays.

S

You see, we write for our audience. Our world is our audience. I wrote Dara when I realised that he is one hero for Indian-Muslims. He has been demonised for advocating integration of all Indians, irrespective of their faith while he could be a role model for Muslims of South Asia. On the other hand, his fundamentalist brother Aurangzeb who got Dara executed has become the hero of religious extremists. The debate which was going on then and which is still going on, is about the true interpretation of Islam. Dara’s message of humanism and peace is a very strong and legitimate tradition in Islam, especially in South Asian Islam. The play was a huge success here in Pakistan as well as in India, where people share the same history.

We were then approached by the National Theatre, London. A Pakistani-British Anwar Akhtar, who runs an organisation called Samosa. He had seen our Dara and thought such an extraordinary story should be presented at the National. At the time, the National Theatre had a very progressive Artistic Director, Sir Nicholas Hytner, who was looking for something different. Obviously, the demographics of the UK, especially London, had changed so much and they wanted to attract audiences from other communities. The issue of Islamic extremism dominated the Western media at the time. The time for Dara was ripe.

When I was asked by the National for Dara and Ajoka, I had discussions with Sir Nicholas Hytner and his script editor about the English adaptation of the play. They found a playwright, Tanya Ronder and a director Nadia Fall to work with me. They visited us in Pakistan and then I took them to Dehi and Agra where most of the events of the play took place. They researched, discussed and developed their own understanding. Then came the process of adaptation which was quite prolonged and thorough. Anwar and a team of actors were also involved.

The process was quite rewarding but there were problems obviously. The first problem which I knew from the very beginning and kept on stressing was the risk of Shakespearising Dara. They have this tendency, especially at the National Theatre, but across all British and Western theatre to some extent to say, oh, this is just like Macbeth or King Lear or a great Shakespearean story. Our audience will love it. But I said, this is Dara, and this is a South Asian story. This is our story. It is not a Shakespearean story. It is different.

I told them that it may be a minor issue for the West, but for us, it’s a question of life and death for Muslim societies. Sufism can be a progressive political force. For example, Sufis are the only part of the religious tradition where the performing arts are not only approved but encouraged and many of these Sufis used to dance or compose music or write poetry. In that state, theirs was a conflict with the clergy and with the mullahs – how sensitive and how strong that narrative and conflict is. Our past and present are all mixed. The National Theatre said, yes, we understand. They tried their best to maintain that balance, but they couldn't help the Shakespearisation of Dara. So, unfortunately, some of the major elements of the Dara story, which I thought would give the British audience a new insight of Muslim societies, were lost.

Our Dara was celebratory in its presentation. Here there is music and there is dance and there is dialogue, everything works together. There, they have separated form: this is Shakespearean theatre, this is comedy theatre, this is dance theatre. They were worried that their audience will not understand these frequent references to poetry and Qawwali, music and dance, so they kept some of it, but from a very Western perspective. In the end, I mean, people loved it and it totally sold out for three months. And when they took it off the stage, people were calling us in Pakistan asking for tickets. They were so keen. At the end of the day, that was still a great experience and a great production. It got rave reviews and was called the play of the decade. They still have the play on the National’s digital platform.

S

So many stories. Every day you get a news story, which has dramatic potential, which can be meaningful for our people. But obviously, there are limitations of resources and limitations of my own capacity. Right now, I've just finished a new play called Uddan Harai. The title means “ready to fly”. It is about the Partition of 1947 and the story of one group of Muslims trapped in the city of Patiala, awaiting either forced eviction or a kind of massacre. Based on an eye witness account of a survivor of the 1947 Partition of India, it is the story of a 12 year-old-boy who used to go up to the pigeon house, on the roof and hide there. From there, he could see whatever was happening on the streets or other roofs. The incidents narrated were horrifying, dramatic but also very significant. I have finished writing it and we hope to premiere it in March.