Don’t go down that street
The monologue features a demented old goof ranting to imaginary birds the fragmented story of a world he cannot piece together. It is a coiled piece of writing that taxes the actor’s pliability who must shift from one stray impression to another as the mad old man chases his random thoughts articulating them in staccato phrases that only he knows what they mean. It can be a nerve shattering portrayal if done with the required intensity. Salman Shahid did a very professional job of it, because maybe it was a labour of love and partly a trial of one’s dramatic capability. We learned Salman had done a reading of the monologue in London earlier at a celebrated Soho theatre but its enactment was fated to take place in Islamabad which in recent months had seen some blockbuster performances at the national stage including a gun battle at the holy creek. In size and importance it was a teeny bit but Sehbai in its twenty minutes has packed the lunacy of our time, not just the oddities of our national burlesque but the cryptic doings of global performers. In the raving idiocy of his old protagonist he presents a collage of the thumbnail sorrows and assorted frames of suffering that have made this world an insecure place. You have to be mean and clever to succeed in this world. The quantum of your frustrations just equals the measure of your integrity.
After his Manto’s Tobatek Singh in which he galled a stark vision of political reality from the splintered worlds of neurotics, Sehbai, it looks, has not been able to disengage his fancy from the workings of paranoid minds. The honesty of their perception and its uninhibited expression that creates such embarrassing situations for the so-called decent folk intrigues Sehbai no end for with all his sanity this is what he enjoys doing most. In Don’t go down that street he drifts into another area of the disturbed cerebrum which is taking stock of contemporary living.
Can only the insane understand and make some kind of internal compromise with its irrationality, he seems to ask when the pigeons all fly away leaving the old nut with a bunch of feathers. The World Trade Center collapses. The captains of global commerce see no end in it but a new beginning.
The Islamabad audience, rare as such treats are for them, may not have seen Salman Shahid perform a solo English piece of this kind, having seen him do only sleepy roles on TV that he enjoys doing so much with that characteristic amused detachment of his, gave him a full throttled applause in the intimate ambience of the small hall where the monologue was staged sans props, sans entrance fee. Salman had to come on stage twice to accommodate all who had assembled there to watch him do a Sehbai role. The event needed no publicity for if word gets around in this city there’s going to be a show, people flock to have an evening out of the domestic monotony, to which residents of this unique capital have been doomed to pass their living days.
The central idea of the monologue being Claire’s, she was also its dramatic rendition’s co-director and a very happy person that evening — gossiping with Pakistani abandon, mimicking acquaintances and savouring bits of scandals and foibles of the high and mighty, the bold and beautiful of our land that her husband relishes narrating. He loves returning to Shabana Azmi whom he once escorted to her hotel in Karachi and found to his utter dismay she did not know who Roohi Bano was. Piqued by her stiff upper lip he pricked her ego a little further to the point she blurted out what she thought she was, a star. Star! Madam, please forgive me, he said, but it was Shyam Benegal who picked you from your sidekick roles. Still, you are not star stuff; it is Madhuri Dixit. That little journey ended rather brusquely. People do engage in a little posturing before strangers. It is a defensive mechanism. One needs more than a short journey to know people.
But I can trust Sarmad’s judgment. Shabana’s suave, stocky husband, poet Javed Akhtar, is also very successful — bagging all the best song awards since Bombay became Mumbai. In all likelihood, he deserves them too. But there could be another reason. He is a smart player; understands the commerce of showbiz. Without batting an eye, at a star studded gathering of thousands, he acclaimed Annu Malik as a great music director whom everybody knows to be a thief who has made a career out of lifting other musician’s work. But let’s not begrudge the couple their success. We are all living in difficult times and they make quite a team.
Deconstructing the ducks
IT was a place where lovebirds cooed, children frolicked and little boys with time on their hands caught tiddlers with a line tied to a stick and a piece of wood or styrofoam serving as the float. Styrofoam, like bubble wrap, was rare then and highly prized by the juvenile set, at least by the wastrels who spent their afternoons concocting adventure instead of clinging to mummy and creature comforts. It could be bartered for a bit of bubble gum or even a spare hook, depending on the affluence of your partner in trade. Mark Twain would have understood.
On occasion the godlike adult armed with branded rod and reel could be spotted amongst the reeds, triggering awe, envy and the impulse — always suppressed, I should stress — to simply grab the man’s gear and leg it to KDA. We were loafers, true, but not delinquents.
It was shady and green with a biggish pond thrown in for good measure. When we weren’t looking, the Karachi film industry — yes, there was such a thing — found it the ideal locale for scenes thick with mindless prancing around able-bodied trees. Ducks, with little ones in tow, also came into it. A peek into the future, or chapter two, if you will.
The drive over saw the hero yanking the wheel left and right as if churning butter while he sang. That’s how you drove a car in those days. There wasn’t much traffic, you see, and lurching from side to side was the preferred mode of navigating from point a to b.
Ah, memories. Of course all that was a long time ago and I could be wrong, I frequently am. But I’m fairly certain most of this did take place. While the short-term memory may be shot, I’ve still got a handle on events prior to 1982.
Later in life it became one of those places ideally suited to smoking the truly gratifying gasper, as opposed to cigarettes puffed away unthinkingly at the desk — or in the stairwell, as the case may be in this foul age. Smoke, savour the aroma and deconstruct the ducks wishing you could be more like them in every way, particularly the part involving diving and disappearing from view, however briefly.
By then, however, Jheel Park was a shadow of its former self. Like the rest of the country, it fell into disrepute in Ziaul Haq’s time and became the haunt of heroin junkies, prostitutes and similar unfortunates in a land going to pot, if not directly to hell in a bucket.
During the daytime, though, it was still a pleasant enough spot visited by families and couples eager for respite from a concrete jungle nowhere near as stifling as it is now.
For those who’ve forgotten, Karachi was a lovely city once, almost a model for urbane living in Pakistan. There was no load-shedding and the power didn’t go off unless it rained, which was rare. Nothing even vaguely metropolitan could rival it. Lahore, despite its pedigree and sterling sense of identity, didn’t quite cut it (then) in terms of modernity. Sadly Karachi went downhill rapidly, starting in 1985 when the rot well and truly set in.
Now Jheel Park is being bulldozed and no questions asked. Where there were once benches and shady trees, there shall be a parking lot. The pond, or lake, itself may be spared but I wouldn’t count on it. What we’re looking at folks is prime property and someone connected will be turning tricks in there soon enough.
True, Jheel Park fell into dereliction long ago and large chunks were gobbled up by area residents and local heavies. The goal then should have been to restore it to its former serenity. But no. What we’ll get instead, probably, is a McJheel lit up to give you sunburn at night and manically manicured flora rendered more ornamental than organic. Line banao, ticket katao. The human herd, with purchasing power, led to believe it’s having fun following orders.
Gardeners in the few parks that have come up of late seem to be constantly hacking away at shrubs and bushes to keep them under control. Nothing is allowed to grow freely with anything resembling abandon. Note also the absence of saplings that could one day become large, shady trees. One gardener in a city government park told me that trees spoil the grass. Right. Excellent priorities.
What is it with this control freakishness, this obsession with trimming and pruning? My personal take is that many humans find comfort in uniformity and feel threatened by anything wild and bigger than themselves. Anything alive that is; buildings they admire. The way things are going, there will be no more lush little hideaways in the concrete jungle, only plastic substitutes and shopping plazas. Jheel Park will be like any other place, made to order and made to kneel.
Enough said, for now.
imalik@dawn.com