Hamari Shabana

7th December 2009

Once I was a theatre buff and have seen some outstanding plays. Outstanding plays continue to be staged in Delhi all the time. But over the years, it has become increasingly difficult to manoeuvre around the work schedule and actually make it to a play on time! I end up watching plays infrequently; yet I never give up trying. So when I read that Tumhari Amrita would be staged at Epicentre in my own Gurgaon, I swore that I would make it, no matter what hurdles I faced.

Theatre-goers in Delhi seem to turn out in numbers only on Saturday nights. Sunday nights are a no-no for most people with jobs and small children. And Friday night is not theatre-night simply because nobody can plan to leave from work early enough to navigate through Delhi’s traffic and still reach any formal function on time! They party on Friday nights instead. As for week nights, there is usually a handful of die-hards for plays staged anywhere in Delhi. Tumhari Amrita was being staged on a Monday.

Based on what I thought was a flawless line of thought, I reached the ticket counter on the very first day with a swagger. Imagine my shock when I discovered that all tickets of all denominations were sold out!!! I called people high and low to find that one influential person who could find me a couple of tickets. Alas, they were really and truly sold out. Influential people and peons alike threw up their hands and my despair grew and grew.

Only this morning a close friend slipped me some valuable advice… I was to reach the venue alone fifteen minutes before the start of the play. Last minute cancellations were always there and a lone person was more likely to claim her rights to that ticket than someone in a big group. It sounded like rather a slim chance but I went nonetheless, desperate that I was. The ease with which I found a ticket and went in was unbelievable! I walked in and sat.

Of the solo plays that I have seen, Nathbati Anathbat (performed and acted by Shaoli Mitra) stands tall and proud… a cut above the rest. For those who are not familiar with it, Nathbati Anathbat is the story of the Mahabharata as perceived by Draupadi. Shaoli Mitra acts as Draupadi, of course. But being a solo performance, she also acts as Yudhishthir, Bheema, Arjuna, Duryodhana and an unbelievable number of characters! She also enacts battles, love scenes and court scenes and there is no scope for even a moment of boredom as she capers across the stage by herself and portrays multiple characters.

So, solo plays can be very very good and Tumhari Amrita was not even a solo play since there were two actors – Shabana Azmi and Farooque Sheikh. I knew that this combination on stage would put up something worth witnessing. I also knew that they represented two characters who had known each other for 35 years through their love letters.

Yet nothing prepared me for what I witnessed on stage today! Nathbati had had the richness of multiple characters and the battle and outdoor scenes to make it lively despite being a solo play.  Tumhari Amrita did not have any of that. It had two desks with sheaves of paper on which the script was written. Shabana Azmi sat at one desk and Farooque Sheikh sat at the other. They were dressed in sari and pyjama-kurta respectively. There were no sets, no music, no melodrama and no other characters that came on stage. To that extent, even though there were two people acting, they were really sitting at their respective desks throughout and not budging an inch! It reminded me more of a play-reading than a play!

But this was no play-reading! The variety of emotions that the two (especially Shabana) displayed just sitting in one place with a sheet in front is unbelievable. The pace of the dialogue was just right with no scope for boredom. There was laughter, sighs and pin-drop silence in most of the places. And did I notice a couple of hesitant finger-tips carefully wiping off something from the eyes? Before I knew it, it was over.

I came home feeling that I had learnt something new – how to act in a play without acting! Shabana looks young and refreshing and I would have placed her age as late forties. This is not possible since I am 46 and I saw Masoom, Shabana’s landmark film – where she acted opposite Naseeruddin Shah – while I was still in school! The ease with which she portrayed the character of Amrita – all the way from girlhood to middle age was phenomenal. At each point, one could vividly visualise Amrita in her big palatial home in a frock or sitting house-bound in her granny’s house or lonesome in her artist’s studio in Paris.

And to think that I made it by a whisker!