Yearning and love have long been poetry’s most enduring subjects, often finding their deepest resonance in what remains unsaid. Romantic ache is the core of theatre director Syed Hyder Hasan’s Ek Mulaqat based on the love story of poets Amrita Pritam and Sahir Ludhianvi,
An audience beloved across the world, the play, taking off from the title, is about a single, fateful meeting between the two poets on Amrita’s terrace in her Delhi home. It becomes an exploration of unrequited love, lingering desire, and poetry. First staged in 2014, it was revived early this year, nearly a decade after its premiere. “Ek Mulaqat was extremely popular, but we had to stop it for various reasons. Then COVID-19 happened. For a long time, we kept saying, ‘Let’s do it.’ Finally, we fixed a date in May and started. It was as simple as that,” says Hasan.
Ek Mulaqat, in Hasan’s words, is a poetic re-imagination, rather than a biographical account of the relationship. The spark came from a single line Amrita wrote after Sahir’s death in 1980 — “Aaj mera Khuda mar gaya (Today my God died)”. “That intensity — that madness — is where the entire play came from. It’s not even quasi-historical. It’s an emotional piece,” he says. “I didn’t want to get into their personal complexities. I consciously chose to make it a pure, unadulterated love story.”
Reimagining the stage
Actors Deepti Naval was Amrita Pritam and Shekhar Suman was Sahir Ludhianvi in the first staging. But for the reboot Naval, who performed in 94 shows, stepped away due to health concerns after COVID-19. “She was keen, but she felt the stress before a performance would be difficult given her health,” Hasan says. The role is now played by Geetika Tyagi, whom Hasan had previously worked with. “Every actor brings their own dynamics,” he adds.
While the text remains unchanged, the reboot reflects a shift in form and staging. The earlier version operated on two planes. “There were two spaces — one was the mental space of the characters, the other was the real space, the terrace. We also used photographs and visual illusions.”
In the current version, the play unfolds entirely on the terrace. Hasan, however, has introduced a new visual metaphor: the moon. “I use AI now. The moon becomes like a Sufi — it comes down to witness this unusual love story and retreats when the characters need space,” he says. The moon also changes colour to mirror emotional shifts in the play— heartbreak, longing, or memories of Partition.
Letting language lead
Music also played a prominent role in the older version, with Sahir’s songs like ‘Abhi Na Jao Chhod Kar’, ‘Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein’, turned into new compositions, alongside Punjabi poetry. The reboot, however, takes away much of this layering. Songs have been replaced by background music, allowing the dialogue to flow without interruption.
In a time when Hinglish dominates popular performance, Ek Mulaqat unapologetically embraces Urdu and Punjabi. The use of language also carries the weight of history — Partition, longing, loss — themes both Sahir and Amrita returned to repeatedly in their poetry. Audiences, he says, often tell him they don’t understand every word — but they feel everything. “You don’t need to understand each line. You need to get the essence.”
Ek Mulaqat will be staged at Kamani Auditorium on December 28 at 4 pm and 6.30 pm