Daily Times

LAHORE: A 45-member team of Ajoka Theatre comprising of actors and technicians have left Pakistan for India to cross the Wagha Border on Thursday to participating in the 2nd Hamsaya Theatre Festival.

The Hamsaya Theatre Festival will open on Saturday in Tagore Theatre, Chandigarh and will feature Ajoka’s five plays.

The plays include “Dara”, “Kaun Hai Yeh Gustakh?”, “Lo Phir Basant Ayi”, “Kabira Kharra Bazaar May” and “Anni Ma Da Supna”. This is an exclusive theatre festival for Pakistani plays in India and Ajoka has collaborated with the Punjab Sangeet Natak Academy and Adakar Manch Mohali for the five-day theatre extravaganza.

Irrespective of the political hurdles and tensions, Ajoka believes in promotion of peace and going to India with the same cause.

Ajoka Theatre Executive Director Shahid Nadeem said that besides the promotion of peace, it’s an effort to freshen contacts and relations. All the plays are based on mutual stories and sentiments which people across the border share. “This festival will provide an opportunity to think beyond tensions and will project a new wave of socially relevant and meaningful theatre of Pakistan,” he added.

The 1st Hamsaya Theatre Festival enthralled the Indian audience last September and this year Ajoka is taking two new productions “Kabira Kharra Bazaar May” and “Anni Ma Da Supna” to India.

The play “Dara” will be presented on Saturday. “Dara” is about the less-known but extremely dramatic and moving story of Dara Shikoh, eldest son of Emperor Shahjahan, who was imprisoned and executed by his younger brother Aurangzeb. Dara was not only a crown prince but also a poet, a painter and a Sufi. He wanted to build on the vision of Akbar the Great and bring the ruling Muslim elite closer to local religions. His search for the truth and shared teachings of all major religions is reflected in his scholarly works such as Sakeenatul Aulia, Safinatul Aulia and Majmaul Bahrain. The play also explores the existential conflict between Dara the crown prince, and Dara the Sufi and the poet.

The play titled “Kaun Hai Yeh Gustakh?” focuses on writer Sadat Hassan Manto’s life in Lahore after his migration to Pakistan in 1948 until his death in 1955. This will be staged on Sunday. The play deals with Sadat Hassan Manto’s struggle with his detractors and an increasingly conservative and intolerant Pakistan which he foresees in his writings with amazing prescience.

On Monday, “Lo Phir Basant Ayi” will present a story which revolves around the beautiful city of Lahore, where people believed that the walls built around the city would protect them from marauding invaders for all times. But the insidious enemy stealthily breaks in, the gates disappear and the city is held hostage from within by an enemy which is now stealing everything, their valuables, their values, their culture as well as their identity. Among the bewildered citizens is Ustaad Mauju whose family has been making delicate and colourful kites for the people of his city for centuries, a teacher who is being told what to teach and what not to, young lovers who cannot sit on the same bench in their college and a child who sees the “Raani” kite in his dreams and wants to fly with her up into the blue sky. But the Rok Thaam Committee is keeping a very close watch. Spring arrives but will Basant ever be celebrated again in the besieged city?

On Tuesday, “Kabira Kharra Bazaar May” will be staged which is the story of Bhagat Kabir. He was attacked by both Hindu and Muslim religious establishments but the people loved him.

“Anni Ma Da Supna” will be presented on Wednesday. “A Blind Woman’s Dream” is inspired by the true stories of that generation which was dislocated and tormented by devastating events in Punjab during Partition. It is a story of Mai Janki and Ustad Rango’s shattered dreams and traumatic nightmares but also of the resilience of the human spirit.