TWENTY years is a long period, particularly in our times when things everywhere and at every level are changing with a rapidity hardly conceivable in the past. So, when Madiha Gauhar decided to celebrate her Ajoka Theatre’s 20th birthday by restaging the same play at the exact same spot from where Ajoka had taken a start, she found that much had changed with the passage of time.
None of the original cast was there in the repeat play. And when Madiha, along with her new cast, stepped on the lawn where the play was to be staged, the owner, none other than her mother, Khadijah Gauhar, was not there to receive her as she had already departed from the stage of life.
Madiha explained the circumstances which led her to choose the lawn to stage the play and the subsequent birth of Ajoka Theatre. Those were the cruel years of Ziaul Haq’s martial law. Dissatisfied with the kind of plays presented on stage and on PTV, she, along with Shahid Mahmood Nadeem, had developed a craze to have their own theatre in accordance to their concept of a theatre. With a script in her hand, she was in search of a venue. But government-dominated art institutions could not provide her with a place for staging the protest play that was an adaptation from a play of Badal Sircar, acknowledged as one of the architects of modern Indian theatre.
At this juncture, Khadijah Gauhar came to her daughter’s rescue. She offered the lawn of her residence for this purpose. Madiha lost no time in availing the opportunity. Fortunately, the play she had did not stand in need of the kind of paraphernalia a play in general requires. It was a kind of street-play and though it was staged in a private place, the play drew a large audience.
With the production of the play, Ajoka Theatre came into existence in May 1984. Now, after 20 years, the same play was staged at the same venue.
Says Madiha, “I was under the impression that the 20-year-old script would need many changes in accordance with the changed times. But as I went through the script, I felt that nothing had changed, that we were living under the same old conditions. Only a few minor changes have been made.”
The few changes have made the script up-to-date to the extent that it now covers what happened in India after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and in Pakistan in consequence of the MMA’s demand for Shariat Law. What had been left unsaid by Badal Sircar has now been said in the same vein by Madiha and Shahid Mahmood Nadeem to the satisfaction of the Pakistani audience of this play, which runs under the title Juloos.
During recent years, Madiha has made an addition in her programme of purposive theatre. With the additional mission of Indo-Pak peace, she carried her Ajoka to India and won praise for her mission and recognition for Ajoka.
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A FEW words about the book fair which has now come to stay as an annual feature of Punjab University. I went there and breathed for a few moments in an atmosphere full of the aroma of books.
In the past decades, some association of booksellers and publishers had cared to arrange an annual fair in this city. It lingered on for a few years and then came to a stop for reasons best known to the organizers. Perhaps, it lacked a sense of dedication, which we find here at work. The young university people associated with the Jamiat-i-Talaba, the fair organizers, seem to have developed a sense of mission in respect to this function. In their keenness to promote book culture in the city, they make personal contacts with prominent personalities from different sections of society and invite them to the fair. This kind of campaign is direly needed in a society which lacks the culture of books.
As I was engaged in casting a cursory glance on the book stalls, Ataul Haq Qasmi came close to me and said, “Just see how many works of authors known for their secular thinking are on exhibit here.”
I agreed with him. The exhibition did not betray any ideological bias in spite of being organized by an ideologically committed group of students. It is a good omen. It sets a good example of intellectual tolerance in an intolerant society.
TWENTY years is a long period, particularly in our times when things everywhere and at every level are changing with a rapidity hardly conceivable in the past. So, when Madiha Gauhar decided to celebrate her Ajoka Theatre’s 20th birthday by restaging the same play at the exact same spot from where Ajoka had taken a start, she found that much had changed with the passage of time.
