Here is a long pending review of Usha K R’s Monkey-Man. A classic case where a hook was abandoned, but the language is good. See here …

Telephonic Interview with Habib Tanvir

Dated October 15, 2004

‘Unless you see the bad, you do not recognise the good’

Introduced Habib to the reason why we are asking him some questions. Told him about the Ranga Shankra newsletter.

Q. Agra Bazaar opened fifty years ago and is still performed, that in itself is a staggering fact and feat. Has the play changed along its long journey?

Ans: Yes, it has but not very much. It opened in 1954 and by the early sixties, I made some revisions which resulted in new characters and added greater complexity to make it more meaningful.

The play has three strands: the cucumber seller or the vendor’s life, the economic problems faced even by the elite class, and the lover and the rival. These three strands are interlinked bringing out the main theme of the play, which is the literal plebian poetry of Nazir Akbarabadi. This foregrounding of the theme takes place not only through Nazir’s poetry but also through the character of his friend the kite seller.

You see, Nazir was a poet of poverty; he never left Agra even though he was lured by kings and nobles. The play also cannot really be opened up to any city or place. It shall remain the Agra Bazaar, wherever it is performed. The important thing to note is that though Nazir was writing about poverty he was also extremely contemporaneous, religious, and relevant even today. That gives the play its strength. It is a play performed at many places, in various styles, yet it remains faithful to its creation and adapts itself to the changed environments.

Q. And Charandas Chor?

Ans. Charandas Chor is an anti-establishment play. It holds up a mirror to the present where everyone including the Guruji, the policeman, the treasurer and even the Queen is corrupt. The only truthful person and an unlikely hero, is the thief. And he pays a price, his life. In that sense the Chor is like Jesus or Gandhi.

This is a simple form, more like a film. In this play the songs project the meaning. And yet the Chor stands out not because he is truthful, but because he is not even aware of his being honest. He is just living his life according to his choices. He wants to stick to his choices, in this case a negative choice. He stands out because he does not compromise, he does not bend, and he does not buckle. Yet, he does all of these without even being aware of any high drama. That makes the play live on, and it has lived on without really being changed or modified.

I have seen some shows of it where the directors have made it simpler by removing the songs, due to a lack of singers or time. Yet, the real joy of the play is in its entirety, not by being shuffled.

Q. You have actors from Mumbai, Delhi, Bhopal, and Chhattisgarh, what is it like to work with this eclectic ensemble?

Ans. You know, its strange but true that the urban actors I work with are more inhibited. While the rural actors who are illiterate respond better to lines, to gestures, mannerisms, and songs. Guess it has to do with what education has done to the urban lot. It has crammed them; the urban actor is more inhibited in his responses, his emotions, his spaces, and his life. While the rural actor is more free, flexible and adaptive.

Of course, I hardly dictate anything. I like to observe the talent and resources of different actors and see how their potential can be tapped. So while I ease the urban actors, I groom the rural ones. In the end the performance is the same.

Q. You have witnessed the many phases of the Indian theatre. What do
you feel about the work that you see today?

Ans. Yes, theatre has changed and I am quite happy with some of the things I see in small town India. People like Ratan Thiyam, Jabbar Patel, Panikker, and others are doing a good job.

In Lucknow, Kanpur, Jabalpur, Sholapur. These are places with limited means, they have no resources, no spaces, yet they have imagination. And their imagination is in abundance. They dramatize novels, poems, stories and convey the meanings to the audiences.

Rural India is devastated by the damage done through the electronic media. Yet, these efforts are on. See its like you need the good and bad both. Else, who will recognise the good? So, its okay, as long as there are efforts to do good work, the resources do not really matter. Yes, I also see some urban theatre, and it is not very good.

Q. We are coming back to an early question, but what for you is the timeless beauty of Agra Bazaar and Charandas Chor which makes these plays endure so?

Ans. The communicability and humour of Agra Bazaar is high. People come to see it to get a glimpse of a medley of things. They over all attract people because guess everybody likes to see the reality, the ethos of a market, and Agra Bazaar depicts it well.

Now everybody knows the story of Charandas Chor, but before they learnt of the story Charandas Chor stunned people. They could not believe that this light, humourous play will stop rollicking and end in the end that it has. Many people feel why can’t Charandas make the compromise and live happily with the Queen, so they do not understand the value of the Chor’s truth. So they are shocked when he is killed, and gradually it dawns on them. That makes the play attractive. Now that people know the story, they still find the conflict between corruption and truth interesting; guess they all relate to it in some way, in the modern world.

Q. You have a world of your own with your Chhattisgarhi performers. What is that world like?

Ans. Despite great destruction of life and folk theatre by the media and the films, and the other urban developmental patters, we do not feel that folk is dead. In fact, it is thriving. There is something good and healthy about folk which nourishes many contemporary thoughts and keeps alive the tradition and brings it alive in the body political.

So there is a lot of hope, much more than I can say about many urban places. However, I do not know much. Yet, the economies of the small town India is different. The sabzi wallah comes to your door to sell his wares. You rub shoulders with the rural, you imbibe learnings and maybe values. The culture stays alive. What is in the city? The super malls and packaged food. Where is a culture in it?

I am not for economic deprivation for the rural India, but we must be sensitive to cultural loss. See my life in Bhopal. There is a fundamentalist government. Food, shelter, acting space, welfare of the troop, train tickets, everything is a struggle. I have to fight hard for our rights; I have to fight hard to avoid the suffocation.

Last year, on May 20, was my father’s sixth death anniversary. On May 29 was my mother’s second death anniversary. Ever since Papa’s death, I had been involved with mother’s health and had never managed to mourn him thoroughly. This time, since I had already mourned my mother’s death and I did not have to think it was Papa’s fifth and mother’s first, I chose to break down. But how could I break down? I had learnt to manage my fragmented self in the larger world. I had learnt to focus on my inherent denial mechanism. I had perfected the art of not feeling. I had trained myself to be stony.

I chose to go away somewhere. My office shut down for a week and I remembered my childhood dream – Ladakh. There was another reason, I had heard in high altitude one loses one’s mind, maybe for a while. Some can, of course, die. I reached Ladakh by a morning flight and went to the hotel I had already booked. The owner Tsering told me that in a few hours the oxygen depletion will catch up with me and my body will crave for air. I will feel dizzy; I will throw up and will be immobile for a day and a half. I was told to not stand for too long, keep lying and keep a bucket next to the bed. ‘Better take your four large jugs of warm water and go to your room. Keep sipping water, even if you did not feel the need. One jug every three hours and do come down to the kitchen for dinner.’

I had a small breakfast of Ladakhi bread, eggs and butter tea and retired to my room on the first floor. From my large windows I could see the beautiful Himalyan range spreading out in front of me. The sunlight was harsh; I drew most of the curtains but kept a small opening to admire the space outside. Thus started my wait. I carried on for a few hours, sipping and throwing up and sleeping. My mind went to my father’s corpse, his funeral, his days before, his days in my childhood. I must have cried. I must have spoken aloud. I did go dizzy, even blanked out from time to time. Added to the oxygen depletion was my chronic smoking. Though someone had assured me that smoking does not affect one in these regions. A wholly underutilised part of our lungs come into play. Whatever it was, I lost it. If this was going to be death, I had a bit of Himalaya with me, I thought.

At night Tsering came up. I do not know how long he banged the door. He woke me up and asked me to come for food. I forced myself down the steps, and then forced myself to eat. After that I do not know when I climbed the steps and came and lay down in my bed. Again weeping, going places in my mind, out of it … until it became very dark. In the black room I got up to look out from the window. A few lights of Leh town. I wanted to jump, just disappear in the dark.

I came back and was moving my quilt when I sensed something under it. I backed away. What was it? It moved. I lumbered to the switch and put it on. Then wondered if I should wake Tsering but decided not to disturb him and other guests. I dared to fling the quilt from the bed. A small, dark grey, furry cat raised it head, looked at me as if it did not care, and went back to sleep again. Flames in my head, fire in my body, vomit in the bucket, and a delicate cat on my bed. It could not have been weirder. I come to Ladakh, to bear the extremity of weather and  health, go nuts through the day and night, and finally find what? A cat!

After that it became a struggle. The cat wanted to sleep under my legs. Anywhere else I may put it, it would come there. It woke me up, I had been asleep for many hours so I lay awake. Since I did not want the light in the room I could not read. My legs were weak so I could  not get up and go anywhere. It was the cat’s night. Papa, where did you go? Your son had come to mourn you … all he had done was to ensure that a cat slept well. Morning came, the cat got up and went away. The sadness would go over the next few days, I would leave it on the long roads and deserted valleys of Ladakh. That evening Tsering asked me to go for a walk.

As I was leaving he said, ‘I have seldom seen anyone breakdown as you did. Brought a lot of baggage here?’ The hill people understand things and state them simply.
I said, ‘Yes. My father.’
‘Leave him here. You were very bad last night. I mixed a lot of garlic in your Thunkpa. Have you had Diamox?’
‘Yes, but Smokey saved me,’ I said.

It was really the cat who saved me from plunging deeper. Who knows how the night would have gone, what I might have or not done. I was not in my senses. But the cat awakened in me what I needed: care for herself, and through her for me. A warm touch. I so much needed it. It was that touch of my father that I missed.

Thanks Smokey. She came one more night to my room. The night before I was to leave Ladakh. How did she know?

I must be around 10 years old when my father took me to see the movie 36 Chamber of Shaolin. It is a movie in which an underdog learns Kung-Fu and becomes a champion, avenges his family’s defeat. A scene in the movie stayed with me.

The hero has to go for breakfast but the path has a pool in the middle. In the water are bundles of sticks tied together. He has to step on the bundle and leap across. He fails, repeatedly. The task is further hardened when the sticks are opened up. The hero keeps falling into the water, getting drenched.

The master comes with a heap of plates. He asks the hero to throw the plate across the water onto the other side. The hero throws one, it drowns. He throws another, that too drowns. You must have done this, thrown a pebble on a lake to see how many times it touches the water top. The master then throws a plate, which grazes the pool top and reaches the other end. The hero is amazed and the master says, ‘Balance your weight.’

These days at my swimming pool I see so many people trying to swim. Their heads out of water, they making an effort to keep their legs afloat. It just does not work. One evening Z was coming towards me, rapidly. His neck moving from side to side, his arms trying to push the water behind, he crashed near me. The top of his head was not even wet. I do not know how it came to me to say to him, ‘The water is not dangerous. Do not fear.’

He looked at me surprised, ‘But I have to swim.’

‘Have you seen a log float?’

He nodded.

‘And a ship? But a needle drowns.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Because the water does not want to drown you. It wants to keep you afloat. You are not allowing it to do so.’

‘How?’

I said, ‘Submerge your feet and head both in water. Straighten out your belly. That will give the body buoyancy. You will float.’

Over two days he tried … It works. If we float we do not drown. We drown when we make ourselves a needle and angle ourselves into the water.

I wonder about life too. It tries to drag us in, jumble us up. The key is to balance our weight and float. The pool is teaching me a lot.

Since the third week of March, I have been going swimming every day. I go in the evening hours, from office, from home, from meeting someone, or just like that. Unlike Yoga or cycling or walking, I never think of swimming as exercise. In my bare minimum clothing, I derive a sense of safety in the deep end of the pool, sort of embryonic and warm. In the allotted one hour I use up only about 40 minutes. I enter the pool, do my laps, and get out before others. It gives me time to shower in peace, without the locker room nuisance of loud talk and too many male bodies.

Many others too come to swim, usually in groups: friends, families, children with mothers. They take their time chatting with each other, undressing, getting into the pool, prancing around in the water. They play ball in groups, hold on to the pool wall and shake their legs, they dip into the water, and many of them do breadths.

I do lengths. Often someone or the other bumps into me, once at least on every lap and I get angry. Do these people not know that the pool is to swim and not play? Do they not know that they should leave a few lengths aside for serious people like me? The pool should have rules. I kept getting angry and they kept bumping into me, spoiling my rhythm, interrupting my sense of purpose, I kept evading them, trying to keep my lengths going, without stopping for those who swam into me or blocked my length.

Then it occurred to me that I can get as angry as I want to but it won’t change my fellow swimmers. These people come here to unwind. This is a play area, not a place which needs to confirm to a rigid set of rules. These people who enter the pool with me do not intend to harm me, they are just being themselves. A little excited, a little relaxed, a little playful, a little uncaring. If I intend to swim through them, do my lengths, I need to be better prepared. What I need to do is know is how to assess when I am going to have a collision and how to get past it or the fellow swimmer or player perpendicular to me. I need not only swim freestyle, looking at one side, but need to be ready with breaststroke too. So that I can stall and navigate through through the masses of people. Sometimes a play area can teach you life lessons.

Translated from the Urdu of Faiz Ahmed Faiz by Poorvi Vora. Also appeared in To Topos Poetry International, PACIFICA: PEACE & the SEA, Vol. 5, pg. 49, 2003. The Urdu version was written in Lahore Jail on 11 February, 1959. Hariharan, Zakir Hussain and Ismail Merchant, rendered and picturised this in the film Muhafiz. See Nayyara Noor’s version here.

Shackles on your feet

Wet eyes and a crazed will are not enough;
Nor are accusations of a furtive love;
Stride in the bazaar today, shackles on your feet.

Stride with arms spread open and in wild abandon;
Stride with dust-covered hair and blood-stained shirt;
Stride, all the beloved city watches the road.

The official and the commoner;
Sad mornings and barren days;
Arrows of slander and stones of insult.

Who but we can be their companion?
Who in the beloved town remains free of guilt?
Who remains worthy of the killer’s hand?

Broken-hearted ones, prepare to leave;
Let us stride to meet our death today.

The translator would like to acknowledge the contributions of Moazzam Sheikh, Frances Pritchett, Cormac Herley, Ajit Sanzgiri and S. Charusheela to this translation

I recently reviewed a beautiful book translated from Hindi by Shveta Sarda. It is a collection of pieces on Delhi from a writing workshop. See here.

A friend sent this over email. I am sure Tenzin Tsundue does not mind my putting the poem up on these pages. If anyone tells me he does I will remove it. After all, I guess, the word should go out, copyrighted or not. Tenzin Tsundue, is the young man who climbed the Bangalore IISC tower and raised the Free Tibet flag five years ago, when the Chinese Premier was visiting Bangalore.

A Personal Reconnaissance

From Ladakh
Tibet is just a gaze away.

They said:
from that black knoll
at Dumtse it’s Tibet.
For the first time, I saw
my country Tibet.

In a hurried hidden trip
I was there at the mound.

I sniffed the soil,
scratched the ground,
listened to the dry wind
and the wild old cranes.

I didn’t see the border,
I swear there wasn’t anything
different, there.

I didn’t know
if I was there or here.
I didn’t know
if I was here or there.

They say the kyang
come here every winter.
They say the kyang
go there every summer.

(Kyang-wild ass found in herds in Changthang (northern plains) of Tibet and Ladakh)

from ‘Kora’ stories and poems. By Tenzin Tsundue

A few days back on the radio I heard Farhan Akhtar say, ‘I am nervous for everyone … we have a new DoP. I hope the movie works.’ I messaged Sanu, who called back and later updated his FaceBook status: I am the DoP for Karthik calling Karthik. I went to see KcK last night, as I had promised Sanu. It’s been a long time since I saw a movie in a theatre. In fact, I did not even know how to book tickets! Anyway, I went …

I loved seeing Director of Photography: Sanu John Varughese. I hoped by the end of the movie I can feel proud of his work. I was, Sanu, I was very proud of you last night. The subtle colours and lights work very well. These are the whys I liked the cinematography:

•    When the protagonist is on the calls, the shadows creep in from the side of the frame.
•    When the protagonist is coming to terms with his reality, the hard steel lighting and ambience is a metaphor for his struggle.
•    The way multiple points of views are arranged when one character sees another one through the glass partition. Good editing too.
•    When the character is confused and his face is shown on the water dispenser –brilliant.
•    The way in tense close-ups, the scar under the protagonist’s eye is highlighted.
•    The odd top shot of the protagonist on the bed, with the bed cover framing the scene. Shows the mood very well.
•    When the protagonist’s perceived truth is about to be revealed the shots change from colour to black and white. That gets my vote!
•    The lit up shots when the protagonist is trying to hide and find himself juxtaposed with the the sea scene where the lover is misty eyed.
•    When the final call comes and the protagonist switches on the light, the texture of the scene changes.

Overall, Sanu you deepened the script and used the rules of aesthetics to serve and enhance the story and never drew attention to your work. I found the lemon lighting in the love scene a little jarring but actually the state of mind of the characters too was jarring. Also the protagonist in chains on one call, not needed. He scampers away very well.

A word about the film:
I liked Karthik calling Karthik. I normally do not trust the directorial intention in movies where reality is distorted to serve art. Many a times it is a very thin line. Though, I believe, TZP, MINK, and Paa remain authentic. I found KcK to be authentic.

Script-wise: The overcoming the hesitation could have been weaved in better with the nervousness and we would have saved time to show character development. But the core story is very well handled. The meta-question is well depicted: If I am happy about something abnormal, why do you have a problem with it? I disagree with reviewers who do not like the ending. I thought the ending was intelligent and practical. Most psychological situations have practical solutions. One has to end a movie somewhere and care is the most important aspect in psychology.

So Sanu, thank you! Congratulations to Vijay Lalwani and Farhan Akhtar, whoever did the sets, and of course to you. Hugs!