BENGALURU: Having travelled to various cities, Jo Dooba So Paar, a musical on the life and times of Amir Khusrau and his relationship with his guru Nizamuddin Auliya, will be coming to Bengaluru for the first time this weekend. The show is among the shortlisted plays for the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival.
Co-directed and co-written by Ajitesh Gupta and Mohit Agarwal, the show is the result of their passion for Sufi music. “Mohit and I both are musicians. Back in 2018, we used to just jam together. Our careers weren’t going anywhere, so we started jamming together on qawwalis since we both loved Sufi music,” recalls Gupta, adding that it was a particular incident in 2018 that pushed both of them to write the play.
During one of the open mics five years ago when both of them were performing, Gupta, without cross-checking, mentioned that the qawwali is a form of folk music. A gentleman from the audience went up to them, pointing out, “Qawwali is not folk music. It is something else. You guys better know what you’re talking about.” This left both stunned, leading them to research on the qawwali of different regions and ultimately leading them to the works of Amir Khusrau. “Through this play, I wanted to draw parallels from Tulsi Das, Kabir Das, Surdas, Mirabai, the Muslim saints, and the Bible,” says Gupta.
Primarily most of the verses are in Urdu, and Gupta was aware it could be difficult for many to understand the language. However, he is quite confident that the play is written in such a way that it can be understood by people who understand Hindi. “Bengaluru might not be a city that understands Urdu as a language. Even when I started writing, I did not know Urdu well, I only knew Hindi. So I had to learn the language from scratch and mostly used Hindi words,” explains Gupta, who has been part of various OTT series.
Gupta is particularly excited this time because this is the first play he has directed that is coming to the city. He shares that one of the reasons they are part of the festival is because of veteran actor couple Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah. “Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah have been great supporters. They have watched our play 9-10 times. They happened to mention us to Arundhati Nag and probably that’s how we are here,” says Gupta.
(The play is being staged on October 28 and 29, at 7.30 pm, tickets are priced at Rs 300. More details on bookmyshow.com)