Voices from the Valley

The 40-minute play was staged by the Shehjaar Children’s Theatre Group of Srinagar,the cultural wing of the Help Foundation,an NGO which rehabilitates and educates young victims of violence in Kashmir. “All these kids have lost their fathers to the violence and have no breadwinner in the family. They were born and grew up amidst gunfire — it doesn’t matter who was firing,the militants or the army. Through theatre,we look at storytelling and role playing in an effort to bring the children out of the gloom and the bleakness of their situation,” says Javed,who has been working with the group since 2006.

Co-director Hafeez Khan adds that every script is written with active participation by the cast,weaving it in the narrative. “Shahie Paezaar is adapted from a folk tale from Baghdad called Abu Ali ka Joota but we added several twists to the main story,” says Khan. The play revolves around Abud who has been gifted a pair of shoes by the king but he finds these extremely uncomfortable. “He tries many times to get rid of the shoes but they turn up on his doorstep again and again. Each of these instances is very funny,making this play my favourite story,” says debut actor and Ajay Devgn fan Hilal Ahmad Lone,9,who plays an urchin on whom a shoe falls when Abud tosses them out of the palace window. The directors say that they want to keep out political references but these creep in from time to time,at the insistence of the young cast. Therefore,when the play refers to Abud being punished with 109 beatings,the subtle parallel to the 109 deaths due to stone-throwing is undeniable.

Bilal Ahmad,15,and Farid Khan,17 joke that there’s something more scary than stone throwers or guns being fired back home: “It’s forgetting our lines before a hall full of people.” But they’ve done well till now,staging plays in Delhi,Kolkata and Himachal Pradesh,on stories ranging from Munshi Premchand’s Idgah to an original play on unity. Shahie Paezaar is in Kashmiri and the actors wear their traditional costumes. “We needed a special curfew pass so that the children could travel from the Kupwara centre to Srinagar for the rehearsals. Then we rehearsed day and night with the windows locked to shut out the outside world,” says Javed as Rajee Ahmad Dar,14,adds,“We have worked hard to make you smile”.