Myriad of emotions

"IF he's poor, we'll make do with khichdi everyday; if he's rich, we'll hire a cook," said the girl when parents insisted she learn cooking. Meanwhile, she climbed trees and rode horses. Her conservative family traced its lineage to Chengiz Khan, but she was happier hanging out with the kids in the servants' quarters.

This was renowned writer and lifelong rebel Ismat Chugtai (1911- 1991) whose works are replete with an iconoclastic honesty, which enraged and embarrassed the orthodox. But they placed her in the front ranks with Ali Sardar Jafri, Saadat Hasan Manto, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Kaifi Azmi. Non-Urdu readers may remember her playing grandmother to Nafisa Ali in Shyam Benegal's "Junoon".

"Ismat Aapa ke Naam" links three of her famous short stories. Directed by Naseeruddin Shah, the show drew crowds spilling into every inch of space at the annual summer theatre festival of the National School of Drama, New Delhi (March 16 - April 8 2001). Why not? This first Hindustani production of Motley, Mumbai, was theatre at its best, taking viewers through laughter and tears, and moments of sheer exhilaration.

Stark and spare-ribbed, the production highlights bristling suggestivities in the text. A dais on the stage, minimal props stretched to maximal use (faded photos, silver surahi, a pair of spectacles, clay pot), unfussy lighting design (wobbly in execution), costumes so right that you don't notice them, and remarkable performances by the Shah family - Naseeruddin, wife Ratna and daughter Heeba.

Mind you, the "acting" is really storytelling, the oldest performance tradition of the world - chants in Aryan hermitage or rhapsodies in Grecian townsquare. This modern version too alternates between telling, showing and multi-role playing, to enrich tints and textures.

In "Mughal Bachcha" male insecurity makes Kale Miyan belligerent beside the nuptial bed, and to run away when his child bride becomes too petrified to obey his orders to discard her veil. A few years later, there is nothing but action replay. Finally, the old ailing Miyan returns, to die before his grey wife can obey him.

Ratna Shah's sardonic tone evokes the arrogance of the wastrel who has inherited nothing but the inflexible pride of his class from Mughal ancestors. We sense seething tensions in the woman's refusal to discard her veil. Familial and social pressures cannot thaw the rebel heart to accept male dominance. Ratna's unhurried movements, pauses and silences, her eye contact with the viewers, all hike up anticipation. The finale where the narrator prepares for the namaaz, with ritual washing and swathing of head with the white chador, coincides perfectly with Gori Bi's moment of peace (freedom?) by husband's deathbed. The colour white acquires a shock value, as does the fading out on the act of prayerful surrender.

"Chui Mui" testified to Heeba's talent. A train journey turns epiphanic for the young girl, as she watches a poor rural woman give birth to a child in the compartment, without any help from the disgusted upper class women passengers.

Naseeruddin Shah has a racy, raunchy tale in "Gharwali", which cocks a snook at male chauvinism, patriarchal networks and the institution of marriage. Maidservant Lajo's free spirit grants bounties impartially to all seekers, until she starts working for Mirza. She falls in love - not with the man, but with his house. She is dismayed by his visits to prostitutes - what unnecessary expense when she is around! However, Mirza's marriage to Lajo spells disaster. He straitjackets her into wifely conformity. (Shah excels himself in showing her misery with the tight salwar replacing the free lehenga). The very things that Mirza had adored in the mistress repulse him in the wife. Divorce rights things - Lajo returns to the household as servant, and happy days are here again.

Shah's barbs-n-bubbles-intact depiction makes him freshest in his seasoned moments. He has the most nuanced voice and nimblest body language in the show. His Lajo is not vulgar. Her amorality is engagingly innocent. In contrast, Mirza's shrivelling repressions are hilarious. No, the tale is not dated. Watching Shah, you are dismayed to perceive its contemporary relevance!

GOWRI RAMNARAYAN

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