“It’s not a play, but as you tune into this reading with your eyes closed, you can imagine the drama come alive,” says Tarique Hameed, Founder of Wings Cultural Society, New Delhi. Hameed’s production Topi Ki Dastaan, based on Rahi Masoom Raza’s novel Topi Shukla, will be performed for the 25th time.
Two friends Balbhadra Narayan Shukla and Zargham Hussain get separated during the Partition, and meet years after at Aligarh Muslim University. The story is as relevant today as it was when written in the 60s. “Topi Ki Dastan poses a question on the problems prevailing in society, communalism and psyche that divides people on the basis of religion and caste,” says Hameed, who is in his 30s. Unlike the ancient form of dastangoi, where one person narrates a story, six artistes – Pradeep Bajpai, Mani Purohit, Rochana More, Abu Yusuf, and Vivaan Samrat along with Hameed, will perform.
It was not an easy journey for Hameed, a small-town guy, who dropped out of school after Class X and left Bihar to financially support his family. “From working in leather jacket manufacturing unit to learning the tricks of computer repairing, I did several jobs to make my dream come true.”
After watching a play called Thanku Bab Lochandas in 1995, he fell in love with theatre and decided to pursue it full-time a decade later. “And my computer repair business gave me financial independence, following which I joined a theatre group in 2005.” Hameed plans to stage this play, “but it needs a lot of funds and preparation.”