HYDERABAD: The works of Ismat Chughtai (1915-1991) hailed rightly as the grand dame of Urdu literature and a fine writer of the 20th century, her well-documented life happenings, mirror the ferocious battles that she waged against fellow male writers. All this, wallowing in hypocrisy and pointless communalism, while upholding feminist values and beliefs.
An eternal favourite of performers on the theatre circuit world over, not to speak of translations into various Indian languages other than English, her works have found favour consistently in Hyderabad circles too.
Sutradhar, the city theatre group, found it appropriate to have three of her stories - Guftagu, Saas and Chidi ki Dukki- staged at Lamakaan on Friday evening. Three artistes - Deepti Girotra, Bubbly Yadav and Pallavi Varma- took charge of the nearly 90-minute programme and kept the audience totally absorbed.
Each story unveiled various facets of the author and the times that she described about it in pre- independent India and later.
Her Story
Guftagu, a biographical account of the author, recounting her life and times at Agra and later Aligarh. Enacted with an earthy and assured feel by Girotra, she virtually lived the character that wants to break free, write about ‘prohibited’ issues like female sexuality, at the same time does not want to be found out for harbouring such thoughts!
Caught in a web
Saas is a classic dual identity status of the middle-class Muslim household which has the mother-in-law switching sides between the daughter-in-law and the son and also supporting her contradictions in the process- all seen from the younger woman’s perspective. Babli Yadav, with her sheer uninhibitedness brought a zingy verve to her performance and her practised ease, clearly due to the impact the role seemed to have had on her was awesome.
Braving circumstances
The climax, brought up by the third story Chidi ki Dukki was Pallavi’s playground, where she performed with aplomb. The wiles of a woman, clearly disadvantaged with her lack of beauty in a crowd of comely maidens is the USP of the story, which ends with the former triumphing and winning the hand of the macho stud who was on the radar of everyone else!
The statement that a small number trump card is stronger in a card game than the king of aces sounds ominously true in this context. Nostalgia lovers could not have demanded anything better and Sutradhar catered to this ambience rather well, the response equally warm and thunderous from the knowledgeable audience.