Poignant satire draws roars of laughter

By far the most hilarious presentation of the ongoing Karachi Theatre Festival 2016 was the one staged on Saturday evening – ‘Choti, Moti, Tota, Aur SM Hamid’.

It was chuckles and chuckles all the way. Added to that was Khaled Anum’s vocal numbers with the strumming on the guitar.

Amid the giggles, however, it was a profound commentary on our utterly woeful civic affairs, especially pertaining to children, who are the future of society and who have to be given the best deal to grow up into healthy and productive human beings. 

The play, though very humorous and to quite an extent slapstick, brought home a pressing civic dilemma; the lack of playgrounds for children and the way the few existing ones are disappearing on account of the greed of builders’ syndicates reaping a quick buck at the cost of our children’s basic rights and their future.

The group of four children who have nowhere to go for play, go to the houses of others which irks the residents. The street they live in is referred to as Koora Gali (garbage lane) and here too when they play, they are boisterous as children are and that draws scolding from the elder residents of the lane.

The play is full of the amusing brushes the children have with the police, interspersed with them singing in chorus to the accompaniment of Khaled Anum’s strumming on the guitar.

The musical interludes lent real verve and life to the play.

It’s not just the shortage of playgrounds that the play points out.

At a certain juncture, SM Hamid (played by Khalifa Sajeeruddin) taunts Moti (played by Ayesha Shaikh) for not having had a bath for three months. To that, comes a quick retort from Moti, “How could I bathe when there was no water in the taps?”, a clear satire on the city’s crippling water problem to which the civic authorities seem to be absolutely impervious. 

It also depicts the strong-arm tactics our police employ towards the public. In this case there are two policewomen – Maria Hussain is a junior policewoman, playing Havaldar Theek, while Hina Riaz, as Inspector Thak performed a really powerful role.

All the cast executed their roles most adroitly and infused real life into the play. Originally a German play by playwright Volker Ludwig, it was staged in Pakistan for the first time in 1984 – adapted by Imran Aslam and directed by the late Yasmeen Ismail.

Even today, it was as applicable to the conditions of our society and has not lost any validity. It could easily be claimed that, thus far, Saturday’s performance by Grips Presentation – directed by Khaled Anum and based on Imran Aslam’s adaptation – was the best of the festival.