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The Rebel

Even as news came in of yet another round of terror attacks in Lahore on Thursday,Delhi-based theatre producer KK Kohli was busy tweaking his new project-a play on the life of Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz,whose rebellious verses,ironically,were about peace.

Even as news came in of yet another round of terror attacks in Lahore on Thursday,Delhi-based theatre producer KK Kohli was busy tweaking his new project — a play on the life of Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz,whose rebellious verses,ironically,were about peace. “Faiz is considered a symbol of dissent,his poems and ghazals are sung in mehfils and dharnas all over the subcontinent,but his best poems are about humanity and hope. This play highlights a period of significant struggle for him,” says Kohli,who also heads Impresario Asia,an arts body. His last project was Dara Shikoh ,directed by MS Sathyu.

The play,called Mujhse Pehli Si Mohabbat Mere Mehboob Na Maang,after a poem by Faiz,has found support from the poet’s daughters Salima and Moneeza Hashmi. Moneeza will be here in Delhi from Pakistan for the premiere on November 1. The play is directed by Ramji Bali,an alumnus of the National School of Drama,and has Zeeshan Ayub,another ex-NSD student enacting the poet’s role. “We’ve tackled the period from 1931 when Faiz was teaching in a college in Lahore and writing romantic verses,to 1970,soon after he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize,the only Asian to ever receive this honour,” says Bali. The play is around 90 minutes long and has a budget of Rs 1.20 lakh.

The curtain rises with the poet reciting how he wants to “look at the past,at the ruins where I see names; whose are they? Mine?” The action follows him from the corridors of his college in Lahore through his marriage with Britisher Alys to the prison cell where he is imprisoned. “I dip my fingers into my own blood to write poetry,” he scrawls with charcoal on the prison wall. Kohli adds that there is special emphasis on the Rawalpindi Conspiracy; he spent four years in jail for allegedly planning a coup against the government. “This is the time his poetry became sharper and more revolutionary,” says Kohli,whose library contains “every book by Faiz and almost all prominent ones about him”. For the past few weeks,Bali has dipped into this collection to write his script.

Songs by Faiz have been performed by the likes of Mehdi Hasan,Iqbal Bano,Farida Khanum and Noor Jehan. “This was a challenge because 30 per cent of the play is music,both live and recorded. We did not want famous voices to distract from the action on stage,” says Bali. Another challenge was that the actor Ayub does not resemble Faiz physically. “But he can speak Urdu fluently in a way Faiz would have liked,” he adds. The play,he insists,ends with a message of hope for a better tomorrow. Appropriate for these times for sure.

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