Advertisement
X

Beyond The Fourth Wall

The great thespian internalised Brecht, adopted folk idiom as his own

During the last few days I have been remembering Habib Tanvir over the years,ever since we first met in 1954. It's like leafing through an old family albumof faded photographs. I knew Habib through his interaction with three people inmy family who at various times were important in his life. The first was myeccentric uncle Zulfiqar Bokhari who was the director of the Bombay station of AllIndia Radio (AIR). In 1945 Habib left Aligarh without completing his Mastersdegree to join the Bombay film industry as an actor. Zulfiqar mamu asked him towork for AIR as a producer and actor. I don’t know whether he learnt anythingabout radio broadcasting while on the job, but it certainly whetted his appetitefor becoming an actor. And like many who were influenced by Zulfiqar mamu, Habibadopted his style of accentuated dialogue delivery, something he was to retainthroughout his life. For a while Habib copied mamu’s  "afro" hairstyle aswell. The radio stint didn’t last too long because Zulfiqar mamu opted forPakistan in 1947 and went back to his hometown, Lahore. Habib then turned todoing odd jobs, writing for films and advertisement shorts, editing variousjournals and "struggling" to become an actor.  

Like many of his generation of students of AMU, Habib was influenced byleftist politics and this marked his political stance from then onwards, thoughhe threw away his party card very soon after he acquired it. Just before Habibarrived in Bombay, the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) had justbeen founded. He immediately began to take part in its activities. Theyrehearsed in a hall near Opera House and Habib acted in plays directed by BalrajSahni and Dina Pathak. I remember him telling us how they used to stage streetplays by pretending to be a pickpocket and a policeman quarrelling. The crowdwhich collected had no idea that this was just a play and by the time they foundout and the real police arrived, the actors melted away. When the CommunistParty of India was banned many IPTA members were jailed or went underground.From 1948-50, Habib was left with the responsibility of running theorganization. After which the doctrinaire Ranadive line made it impossible to doanything worthwhile in theatre and the group became almost defunct. 

In Bombay, Habib edited the English periodical of the Bombay Youth League,which he sold on the pavements of Bombay as well. One of his earliest assistantsin this venture was the second person in my trio, my husband M.S. Sathyu. Sathyuran away without completing his studies in Bangalore and landed in Bombay in1951. The only two people he knew in Bombay were Khwaja Ahmed Abbas and HabibTanvir, who also edited a film paper that Sathyu happened to come across inBangalore. Sathyu sought out Habib and they became friends and shared a flatnear Churchgate station. As IPTA had fallen apart and Habib’s attempts tobecome a filmstar weren’t leading anywhere he decided to leave Bombay. 

In 1953 Habib and Sathyu left to teach drama and art respectively in aMontessori school in Delhi run by Mrs. Elizabeth Gauba. Indira Gandhi was aclose friend and her two sons attended this school  while Habib was there.Sathyu and Habib lived on the premises and became part of Mrs. Gauba’s family.She had a large circle of friends, including my mother Begum Qudsia Zaidi andHabib managed to enthuse her about forming a professional theatre group. Mymother had grown up in Lahore and her brother-in-law Ahmed Shah Bokhari (Zulfiqarmamu’s brother) was one of the first people along with Imtiaz Ali Taj to stagemodern plays for Government College, Lahore, where he taught English literature.She and Habib decided that they would start out by presenting adaptations ofEuropean classics as well as Sanskrit dramas which, apart from Shakuntala,were almost unknown in Hindi-Urdu theatre. She set about translating a number ofplays herself. 

Advertisement

Meanwhile some friends in Jamia asked Habib to stage plays with a new groupthey had formed. In 1954 he wrote Agra Bazar which was staged by him witha group of villagers and amateur actors from Jamia. This was followed by adramatization of Premchand’s Shatranj ke Mohre. Sathyu designed theseplays and did the lighting as well, before going back to Bombay to work withChetan Anand.  

It was in the winter of 1954 that I met Habib who used to come and visit myparents. I was in the 9th standard in boarding school in Mussoorie,and was in Delhi for my winter holidays. And I developed a terrible crush onHabib about which he was faintly amused. I went back to school in spring andlater in the year Habib left for England to study acting in the Royal Academy ofDramatic Arts and later direction in the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Aftermany months of a study tour which took him all over Europe, he returned to Indiain 1958. Of this time, eight months were spent studying the plays of theBerliner Ensemble, the theatre founded by Bertolt Brecht. 

Advertisement

The influence of Brecht made him discard all that he had learnt in England.He took to heart Brecht’s dictum that theatre needs to be fun, like themusic-hall or football. Some of the Brechtian concepts had already been triedout by him in his production of  Agra Bazar and Shatranj ke Mohrewhich were produced by the Okhla Theatre Group. But the example of the BerlinerEnsemble inspired him to use song and dance as part of the theatrical style. Useof folk idiom had already become popular in Marathi and Gujarati plays staged byIPTA, but Hindi-Urdu theatre had no such experiments until Habib came along. 

By this time my mother had set up the Hindustani Theatre, and two plays Shakuntalaand Khalid ki Khala had been staged, both directed by Monica Misra. Habibnow decided to stage a musical version of Shudrak’s Mrichchakatika as Mittiki Gaadi (translated by my mother). While the script was being polished hewent home to Raipur to visit his family. There he met a group of "nacha" stylefolk actors of Chhattisgarh and was so impressed with them that he brought themback to act in Mitti ki Gaadi along with a few Hindustani Theatrefull-timers. For this production Sathyu had called the poet Niaz Haider fromBombay to write the lyrics. Habib had to bully and cajole Niaz Baba to produceanything in a time-bound manner. But the final script was quite marvellous. Theplay was a complete revolution for Delhi theatre goers. It was panned by thecritics as an insult to a Sanskrit classic, but the audiences seemed to enjoyit. 

Advertisement

Later, the most outspoken critic of the production, Suresh Awasthi, became adevotee of Habib’s new style of theatre. My mother had a terrible argumentwith Habib because of his use of folk actors. In a huff he left to form his owngroup. Monica Misra, who originally resented being upstaged by Habib, had bythen fallen in love with him  and she also left Hindustani Theatre alongwith Habib. By then I had left for England and Germany to study stage andcostume design. When I returned in 1961 my mother had died of a massive heartattack and the Hindustani Theatre Repertory Company had been disbanded. 

Habib and Monica married and formed their own group, the Naya Theatre. TheNaya Theatre included a large number of nacha actors from Chhattisgarh plus someenthusiastic urban acolytes of Habib. Another version of Agra Bazar wasproduced by him using this combination of urban and folk actors. For many yearsindulgent officials allowed Habib and Monica space in Delhi to house theirtroupe in a government colony and they put up many memorable productions.  

Advertisement

While Habib and Monika were working out their ideas using folk elements andthe nacha actors, Sathyu and I tried to keep the Hindustani Theatre going as anamateur group. Sathyu staged my mother’s translations of Brecht’s ChalkCircle and I decided to direct Mudrarakshas. Niaz Baba added therecitative verses and songs for these plays. But halfway through Mudrarakshas,he suddenly announced one day that he just had to go to Brindaban and wedidn’t see him for four months. Habib then offered to complete the verses forthe play. Many years later he used the same script for his own production of theMudrarakshas. Habib continued his productions for Naya Theatre but we hadto wind up the Hindustani Theatre and leave for Bombay.  

Four years later I returned to Delhi in connection with the Ghalib Centenarycelebrations in 1969. We commissioned a number of plays and other shows whichwere performed as part of the Ghalib festival, including a splendid play byHabib. For some reason the play was never repeated by him after that. Habib atfirst continued with his mix of urban and folk actors but then decided to shiftto Bhopal and work only with his "nacha" actors. 

Then we lost touch until 1974. Charandas Chor was staged by Habib as ashort play for a workshop in Jaipur, after which Habib worked with me on afilm-script for a film by Shyam Benegal, based on the same story for theChildren’s Film Society. Habib later expanded the script into a full-lengthplay, and along with Agra Bazar it is the play most people remember himfor. Except for Smita Patil who played the princess all the other actors were "nacha"performers from Habib’s "Naya Theatre". Our cameraman Govind Nihalani wouldget exasperated with them because the dialogues and acting for each take wasimprovised and so did not match what had been shot earlier. The film was shot inthe style of the old Keystone Cops and Chaplin films and is still quite amusing. 

It was after Charandas Chor that Habib’s signature style wasrecognized all over the country. And, as someone has said, he became a legend inhis own lifetime. One kept getting news of him from various people and readabout his victimization by the Hindutva forces; his being forced out of theRepertory Company in Bhopal and the attemptto ban his staging of Ponga Pandit. One story he used to repeat withglee was his reply to the BJP minister Sikandar Bakht who advocated the cause of"Urdu theatre" during a seminar. Habib told him there was no such thing as aseparate Hindi and Urdu theatre. They were the same. In any case, the ministerhimself knew nothing about theatre, what he did know was how to destroy oldmosques and Habib was quite willing to give him a list of further mosques hecould destroy. 

After Monica passed away in 2003 Habib could not continue with the samevigour. But he still ate and breathed theatre till the last day of his life. The2004 festival of many of his plays, staged at Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai, was likea swan song. We met a few times during this festival and he reminisced aboutMonika and the old days. Then a few months ago he came to Bombay for readingsfrom his forthcoming memoirs. Mahmood Farooqui read a few excerpts as Habib wasliable to get breathless, and Habib answered a few questions. His daughter Nagintells us that he had just got to the Monica part of the memoirs before he wentto the hospital, never to come back.  

A shorter version of this piece appears in print

Published At:
US