JP NAGAR: This week Ranga Shankara hosted two performances of Song of the Swan, a play by the young company, Knot Theatre. The play was scripted by Asad Hussain and directed by Shubhrajyoti Barat. Asad Hussain started his theatre journey in Delhi with the famous group Chingari, as a translator and actor.
He has translated several French plays into Hindi, acted in many plays and also directed one. His play The Party was performed at the Prithvi International Theatre Festival. Asad is also a screenwriter, currently based out of Mumbai.
When and why did you begin writing plays?
I write in many forms, and theatre happens to be one of those forms. I got an understanding of this form by translating the works of Moliere, Samuel Beckett, Sartre, Boris Vian and Victor Hugo etc. Writing an original play was a natural progression. Even though I wrote my first play way back in the late 90s, I didn’t go back to the process until Song of the Swan.
What stimulated the Song of the Swan?
In 1995, Hans Ostro, a Norwegian tourist was subjected to the first beheading in modern warfare in Kashmir. In recent times, there was Daniel Pearl and so many others. Now with ISIS beheading people very regularly and circulating videos of these vicious acts, it’s very important to put things in a context, and this is an important time to revisit this history. Another reason for me to write this play is very personal. My father-in-law, Dr IG Khan, was a historian and a very well known social activist in Aligarh. I didn’t know him that well when I was a student there. I came to know more about him after he passed away a couple of years before I married his daughter. He was murdered in an act of senseless violence like Hans Ostro. So how does one get to know a person after he is dead? This is what I tried to understand while writing this play. I don’t know if I have understood it yet.
How did you come up with the title?
One - the play is about Hans. His name Hans, if spoken in Hindi, means Swan. That’s probably why the villagers where he learnt Kathakali, used to call him Hamsa. Two - he loved to sing. His mother told me that when he was very young he sang songs in a hospital when one of their relatives was sick; he also sang on the streets of Europe when he was honeymooning and ran out of money. In Kashmir, in captivity, he was the only captive who could sing songs even during those days. It’s quite possible that his indomitable spirit and his defiance, that came out in those songs, irked his captors and got him killed. Three - The play is as much about the death of Hans, as it is about Kashmir’s loss of innocence. When Hans sang for the last time before being slaughtered, the Kashmir we knew also breathed its last. When I think of Kashmir of those days, the image of a beautiful swan singing a song right before its death comes to mind - A song that wrenches one’s heart, a song in celebration of life while staring into the eyes of death.
Tell me something about your characters in the play.
The play is about Hans’ mother, who has just come back from India after retracing the path her son took. Once back, she recalls some events and people she met. There is a videographer who shot her son’s performance in a village in Kerala where he was learning Kathakali; a shopkeeper in the valley from where he was kidnapped; a girl in the village where he was kept captive, a negotiator who treads a fine line between the government and the terrorists, trying to get Hans and other captives free; and then there is a Maskhara, a character like a jester who is part of the traditional Bhand Pather groups of Kashmir, who talks about death and life, and everything in between. He brings a certain kind of context to the whole play. But while listening to the Maskhara, you realize he is probably a product of the mother’s imagination. And then you start doubting if it’s a true account of what the mother saw, or is her memory playing games with her.
Do you have a specific writing style?
In general, no. But for this play I have tried to weave in elements of magic realism, and sometimes a lot of rhyming dialogues, especially in Maskhara’s lines.
Where do you get most of your ideas while writing?
From things around me. From chaos and the beauty that chaos breeds. Also from the idea of justice, and the struggle to keep the stories of people on the margins alive.
What are your present projects?
I am a part of Writer’s Bloc, a joint venture of Rage Theatre and Royal Court Theatre, London. I have written a draft of a play as part of that process. I am also writing a play on Tansen, to be directed by theatre stalwart K Madavane.
I am also working on a couple of film scripts at the moment. I am currently on an artist’s residency at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, a prestigious and well established space for artists from across the world, to work on my writing over a few weeks.
How was it for you, writing this play?
I wrote many drafts of the play over more than a year. But more than the time it took, it was the struggle to create a structure that didn’t have Hans’ presence onstage, and going through every character’s emotion was really tough. I also did a lot of research on grief and death, and also on the turmoil in Kashmir, and that left me completely drained and angry and depressed for weeks. Writing this play has probably been one of the most difficult things I ever did.
Your message?
That a senseless act of violence is just that - a completely senseless act. Whether it’s perpetrated by the great powers of the world, or by the forces fighting those powers.
There is fighting all around us - in Kashmir, in Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Palestine etc. We must understand these wars and the consequences if we want a peaceful world for our children. We need to find a way to be able to stop this.
We need to sing, like Hans did, and like many others did before him. And we need to sing loudly and defiantly so that these forces hear us out clearly.
What is your perspective on theatre at the present?
These are exciting days for theatre. There are groups that are producing fantastic plays all over India.
There is a lot of experimentation going on in the theatre world today. But at the same time, we need more platforms to showcase these works, and find a way to make theatre sustainable.