Two plays with profound themes

The ongoing Karachi Theatre Festival 2016, sponsored by the Arts Council, staged two plays, one after the other, on Thursday evening, dealing with death and the futilities of life.

The first one was about death. Titled, “Marney se pehley jannat”, it had Khalid Ahmed playing an elderly man named Mumtaz and his obedient, caring daughter, Jannat, played by Bakhtawar Mazhar. Despite Jannat’s meticulous nursing and care, Mumtaz finally quits the earthly plane.

The play gives us an existential picture of death and the existential philosophy which lays down that life in its ultimate is just despair and that all good things have finally to come to an end.

Bakhtawar Mazhar executed her role really effectively. She is a versatile actress indeed. She really turned her role into a powerful presentation, with her perky delivery of dialogues. The story was dramatised by Bee Gul.

The second play, also dramatised by Bee Gul, “Badshahat Ka Khatima”, was not a historical play about the monarchy coming to an end. It was about a tramp, smitten with poverty and homelessness.

The tramp, Manmohan, played by Nazar Hussain, is one who has nowhere to go. He sleeps on the pavement and sometimes in his office where he has a petty job. However, a girl, played by Kaif Ghaznavi, has taken a fancy to him somehow and makes really romantic telephone calls to him in his office where he sleeps. While he never gets to see the girl, he is really pepped up by her romantic calls.

Kaif Ghaznavi has a really bell-like melodious voice and, on one occasion sings Ghalib’s famous Ghazal, “Yeh na thee hamari kismet, ke visaal-e-yaar hota”, over the telephone.

However, being a victim of poverty and homelessness, while asleep in his office, he gets a fit of coughing which spells his end.

The play is written by Saadat Hassan Manto and, true to Manto’s style, it has very profound comments on life and the futility it carries.

Manmohan doesn’t live long enough to savour the ecstacy of a romantic relationship. Kaif Ghaznavi executed her role very poignantly.