By Intizar Hussain

Date:12-06-05

Source: Dawn

AT last, Ajoka Theatre has succeeded in forcing its way into the Lahore Arts Council. One says this because last week the council successfully organized the Ajoka Summer Theatre Festival.

We in Lahore have been having so much vulgarity in the name of theatre for long that now one hesitates to recognize theatre as a meaningful mode of expression. It is this situation which compels us to appreciate Ajoka’s contribution to the world of stage. It is no mean feat to stick stubbornly in the face of all kinds of odds to the concept of ‘theatre with a purpose’. It was during the crucial years of Ziaul Haq’s martial law that Ajoka emerged as a protest theatre with Madiha Gauhar as its producer and organizer and Shahid Mahmood Nadeem as its playwright. In pursuance of their goal they went on persistently staging plays, never making any compromises at any cost and never giving in to the temptation of commercial theatre.

Ajoka has survived all odds and now stands firmly as a theatre with a purpose with a quarter of a century of theatrical struggle behind it.

What, after all, is the secret of Ajoka’s success? I am reminded of a number of theatre lovers in this city who at different times formed groups and struggled for the promotion of serious theatre. But each time prevalent socio-political conditions discouraged them. They grew frustrated and got dispersed. None of them possessed the will to convert their passion for theatre into a life-long devotion.

Ajoka came out with a difference. The souls, who organized the group, were wise enough to attach to it a social cause, which under the pressure of Ziaul Haq’s martial law had fired their imagination. This helped them to convert their theatrical activities into a mission. So theatre armed with a purpose has for them turned into something more than what it simply is. It has with them transformed into a cause worth dying for.

While attending the theatre festival I realized that Ajoka has gradually garnered an audience of its own. It includes people who come and see the group’s performances not just for entertainment, but they seem to have a sense of participation in something which has seriousness of a noble cause.

The festival ended with a book launching ceremony. The book was Shahid Nadeem’s play Bullah, which after winning success as a presentation on stage has now been presented in a book form. This provides me an occasion to say a few words about his drama writing.

Shahid Nadeem enjoys the unique distinction of being a lone theatre playwright. Since we were not able to develop in Pakistan a theatre tradition in a serious way, plays for stage were written only sporadically. Shahid Nadeem has written for stage with a consistency which makes him qualify for being treated as a playwright in the proper sense.

In the past, Shahid Nadeem has written in Urdu as well. His previous collection Teesri Dastak includes his three plays in Urdu. But perhaps in due course of time he realized that he could better communicate with his audience in Punjabi. Besides, his themes too coming from the social life in Punjab demand to be depicted in Punjabi. However, his non-Punjabi audience may not feel estranged as he writes with ease and facility. His Punjabi has the same kind of simplicity which we find in the Punjabi verse of Muneer Niazi.

But Madiha Gauhar finds it amazing that when Bullah was staged in Tehran it went well with the Iranian audiences. They understood what was being said, and appreciated it. In fact, here’s the portrayal of a perennial situation recurring in Muslim societies irrespective of regions and countries. It is a situation of conflict between two attitudes or two sensibilities; one being fundamentalist as represented by clerics, the other being liberal thinking as represented by our Sufis and poets. And that is what makes this play relevant to our times. Historically speaking, the play depicts a period when the Mughal Empire was undergoing a process of disintegration. The law and order situation was at its lowest. Banda Bairogi with his lust for blood was on the rampage in towns and villages. The clerics had grown authoritative to the extent that they could refuse burial of any dead soul in the city cemetery. That is what happened with Bullah Shah who with his enlightened Sufi approach to religion had angered the clerics of the city.

This scenario is so akin to what is happening in modern times. With his awareness of contemporary realities Shahid Nadeem has depicted the whole situation in such a way that the play appears to be the portrayal of our times too.