Danish Husain’s new biographical play pays tribute to playwright Habib Tanvir

I wish to take off the cloak from this socalled civilised societyrdquo goes one of his famous utterances And playwright Habib Tanvir was the man to just do it Born in September 1924 he went on to establish the Naya Theatre repertory and reinvent the idea of modern Indian theatreLife on stageldquoI started very late and he was already in his late rsquo70s by then So whatever I could grasp from him I was thankful forrdquo shares Danish Husain One of the honours he recalls was to play the protagonist Patangwala of Tanvirrsquos iconic play Agra Bazar The play alongside Charandas Chor ranks highest on Tanvirrsquos theatrical legacy Husain notes ldquoThe kind of robust repertory he created was incredible He was living with the actors and creating constantly which set him apartrdquoDanish Husainrehearses with the castStoried journeysWhile he was born in Raipur and started out in amateur theatre it was in Bombay during the 1940s that Tanvir joined the Indian Peoplersquos Theatre Association IPTA The group featured names such as Sajjad Zaheer Kaifi Azmi Shaukat Kaifi and Balraj Sahni among othersIn a series of interviews published under the title It Must Flow A Life in Theatre Tanvir shares ldquoThere was near the opera house which no longer is the opera house a beautiful theatre made in the days of British rule in which Raj Kapoor used to perform Across the road there was a smallish hall where the IPTA used to function every evening and there I was acting under the direction of Balraj Sahni and Dina Pathak We got familiar with folk forms like tamasha and lavani bhavai mdash the folk songs of Gujaratrdquo In the same book Tanvir recalls watching The Picture of Dorian Gray at Metro cinema The love for cinema even led him to a job as an assistant editor under Baburao Patel in FilmindiaDanish Husain as Habib TanvirTanvir would foster these city connections till the end Veteran writer Javed Siddiqui recalls being a young theatre aspirant when the great Habib saab toured with his plays ldquoHe would often be invited by IPTA I remember when he skipped a felicitation event at Jhula Maidan in Andheri and asked me to take him to Inayat Akhtar an old friend who lived in Bhendi Bazaar He spent the whole evening speaking about their times at Red Flag House in Khetwadi Communist Party headquartersrdquo he laughs Recreating Habib SaabThe idea for the biographical performance began when fellow theatre artiste MK Raina approached Husain to be part of Tanvirrsquos centenary celebrations at Kolkata Centre for Creativity ldquoThe initial idea was to narrate a DastaneHabib However I soon realised that his life lent itself to a theatrical presentationrdquo he revealsThe result is a product of metatheatre that is akin to manifesting Samuel Beckett in Waiting for Godot ldquoWe have Habib Saab on stage discussing his ideas ideology and thoughts even as his characters walk in and out of conversationsrdquo Husain points out The repertory premiered the performance in Kolkata yesterday before the performance todayHimani Dehlvi and Javed SiddiquiDesigner Himani Dehlvi had barely a few months to find the definitive look ldquoWe have used the instances of what you remember him as through the details of the pipe the beret he wore a scarf that was his memory from Scotland and England It is a recreation of a persona that the audience identifiesrdquo she tells us To this end she avoided using synthetic fabrics and sourced handwoven fabrics and material for the characters She will also be using the familiar method to shape Husainrsquos performance as Sahir Ludhianvi in Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shayar Hoon that follows on September 1For Husain becoming Tanvir involved days of reading through interviews articles and the biography ldquoI cannot tell you the amount of times someone would tell me how they worked in a play with him and I would be surprised The range of people he worked with and shaped is quite unbelievablerdquo he saysON August 31 6 pm and 9 pmAT Prithvi Theatre 20 Janki Kutir JuhuLOG ON TO inbookmyshowcomCOST Rs 500 onwards