A few days back, Hyd played host to 'Manto Ismat Haazir Hain', a play based on a repertoire of works by two Urdu writers, Sadat Manto and Ismat Chughtai.The play was staged as part of the TOI Hyd festival, hence free passes were all one needed to get in. Yet, I couldn't help being a little (albeit, happily) astonished by the turnout at the venue. Methinks, "Wow, that many people, on a Sunday, for a play...wow!!!" of course, I knew that having Naseeruddin Shah's name on the pass (he directed it) must have helped the cause quite a bit; nevertheless it was oddly reassuring to see a mixed crowd for a theatre event. Evidently, this was one occasion not just meant for the 'arty types'. Seemed like the cynic in me would have to give this one do a miss.
But my cynicism always proves that it has ample reasons to exist...is what I realised barely 10 minutes (or was it even less?) into the play. The first short story, "Boo", ( meaning smell, scent)
involves a narrative which is anatomically explicit, a man describing the scent of a woman he had once had an encounter (of the physical kind) with. The play had just about started, when I suddenly heard an odd, unnecessarily loud rustle on the seat next to me. My neighbour, middle aged, chiffoned, pearled and well rounded, had just taken upon herself the task of disentangling a pair of earphones from her bursting- at- the -seams purse, apparently to give to her son, a small boy, possibly just starting school (maybe a little older, don't know) who was suddenly seized (was probably made to seize) with a manic urge to listen to music on his "mama's" cell phone. Now, I have, unlike most women, almost a uni-directional flow of attention. I simply cannot concentrate on two things at a time- add to that a myopic vision and you will perhaps sympathize with my predicament...for a short while, I was neither here nor there. After what seemed like ages, the disentangled earphones finally went to soothe the young tympanic and chiffon-and-pearls mama directed her substantial neck and vision (and thereby my attention) back to the stage. However, no sooner had I managed to clue back in, when the very same rustle returned, this time brandishing its loudness. Chiffon-and-pearls mama, son and company were suddenly on their feet, and filtering out of the auditorium at a pace which, given their trappings, was incredible. And they were not the only ones...soon heads bobbed up, feet clattered, and the entire auditorium seemed to be experiencing the biggest exodus since the days of Moses. People were literally fleeing the sudden onslaught of "obscenity" that they had unknowingly sought to embrace as culture. Run...before your souls are contaminated, your sensibilities violated, your day-out-with family turned into an embarrassing sojourn to the underbelly of human thought. Run...before that dirtiest of words pollutes your holier-than-thou senses, before your sight and hearing and memory are impressed upon by brazen hedonism...before the 'bhadralok' in you is stripped naked ...run, in other words, because you've suddenly realise that these could be your thoughts or mine...
After at least one-fourth of the auditorium had been vacated, there was peace again...and the rest of the evening passed delightfully...not without some inkling of discomfort however...somehow the cynic in me doesn't want to be proved right all the time...
On another note, I ardently request all the people who have and will organise events like these in the future, to please make an entry fee ( however nominal) mandatory...it keeps picnicking at bay ( I am convinced that people were only kept from bringing their pets along by the fact that animals are not normally allowed in an auditorium)....
At the end of the day, there is no such thing as a free lunch...someone always ends up paying the price...or maybe we all do...in one way or the other...
disclaimer:- I am not an art critic...at best an aficionado...all art forms are made meaningful to me in as much as they touch me...that is it...
