"I have always loved students. When I am around students, I truly feel young again,” Naseeruddin Shah began, his voice settling easily into the courtyard at Lamakaan’s 16th year anniversary. Recalling a recent episode, though he felt both insulted and disappointed, he still continued it with characteristic candour and humour. “So when I was invited to Mumbai University’s Jashn-e-Urdu, I was very happy. However, on the night of 31st January, I was asked not to come. I was disinvited, and I felt like a bin bulaaya mehmaan kisi ke shaadi main ghus aaya hoon. Baraat waale samajhte hain main dulhan ki taraf se hoon, and dulhan waale samajhte hain main baraat ki taraf se hoon,” he shared.
He believed the decision stemmed from a fear that he might say something controversial or as he states, “Itni Urdu bolunga ki kisi ki samajh nahi aayegi.” Laughing it off, he added, “Toh jo azaab main Mumbai University par naazil karna chahta tha, maine socha Hyderabad par naazil kar doon.” (The calamity that I wanted to bring upon the Mumbai University, I thought of instead bringing it upon Hyderabad.)
Lamakaan co-founder Elahe Hiptoola offered a glimpse into the personal ties that brought him here. “Naseer bhai is Hyderabad’s damaad,” she said, recalling her family’s long association with Ratna Pathak Shah and how their fathers had once worked together. When the invitation was extended, Shah had agreed instantly — though not without conditions. “Main aaunga magar mere kuch shart hain,” she quoted him with a smile, reeling off the list like a lovingly delivered punchline: bagare baigan, tamate ka cut, talawa ghosht and qubaani ka meetha.
At the 16th year anniversary of Lamakaan, long before the scheduled start, students arrived in clusters, older patrons settled into familiar seats, conversations overlapped and then slowly fell into quiet.
Adding to the surprise of the evening was the presence of his wife Ratna Pathak Shah.
When Naseeruddin finally walked onstage, dressed simply in a brown sherwani, the courtyard erupted in applause. There was no dramatic announcement, no flourish — just his quiet presence. His first request was disarmingly simple: that the audience not view him through their phone screens. Almost instinctively, the courtyard complied, settling into a collective stillness.
What followed was less a performance and more a conversation — between text, voice and space. Shah opened with Allama Iqbal’s Sair-e-Falak, pausing beforehand to reflect on how deeply the poem resonated with his own understanding of existence. His voice moved gently between wonder and introspection, carrying listeners through a celestial journey that felt intimate rather than grand.
He then turned to Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Dua, offering an important clarification before beginning — this prayer, he said, was not for the poet himself, but for humanity at large. The lines Hum jinhein rasm-e-dua yaad nahi… hung in the air, quietly but unmistakably political.
Between sips of chai, Shah recited Sahir Ludhianvi’s Taj Mahal, stripping away the romance to reveal the hollowness of power masquerading as love. The mood deepened as he spoke of Faiz’s imprisonment in 1951, a time when even writing materials were denied to the poet. In that context, Zindaan ki ek Shaam, recited freely in Lamakaan’s open courtyard, felt like an assertion — that ideas, once formed, cannot be confined.
Sahir’s Mere Geet and Faiz’s Mauzu-e-Sukhan followed, circling back to a recurring question: why must artists speak of suffering, injustice and social pain? Shah offered no direct answer — the verses themselves carried enough weight.
The tonal shift came with Chacha Chakkan ne Khat Likha. Without props or costume changes, he slipped effortlessly into comedy, inhabiting multiple characters through precise shifts in voice and posture — the foolish yet endearing Chacha, the sharp-tongued Chachi, the flustered messenger. What began as a reading transformed into theatre, and laughter rolled through the courtyard in waves.
To close the evening, he returned to Mirza Ghalib. Na tha kuch toh Khuda tha arrived quietly, almost like a benediction, its final lines lingering long after the applause ended. As the audience called out for Ratna Pathak Shah to join him on stage, she stepped forward briefly to thank the organisers and the crowd — bringing the evening to a warm, gracious close.