Dastan-e-Ret Samadhi: Loss And Longing In Dastangoi

바카라�At the age of 80, Amma has become swaarthi (self-centred),바카라� states Amma바카라�s daughter affectionately, while indulging her mother바카라�s newfound whims and fancies. Not just swaarthi, Amma has become youthful too. 바카라�Jawaani samay par kyon nahi aati hai (Why does youth not make its presence felt at the right time?)?바카라� the daughter asks as she watches her mother discard her sari and slip into a 바카라�gown바카라�, also known colloquially as 바카라�nightie바카라�, that item of liberating clothing which makes Amma an altogether new person. After moaning for days on end for her recently dead husband, refusing to leave her bed in her son바카라�s house, and turning a stubborn back to all pleas of 바카라�Amma utho바카라� (Wake up Mother), Amma has turned over a new leaf in her daughter바카라�s house.

In her husband바카라�s restrictive household, Amma had secretly helped her daughter enjoy the simple pleasures of youth. Now, the daughter wants Amma to enjoy the same and has brought her to her house, to introduce her to a wider, new world. Breathing freely here, and with transgender Rosie advising her on everything, from beauty care to travel, Amma begins to bloom again. 바카라�This is the right time for jawaani,바카라� muses her daughter, looking at her newfound desires. 바카라�When we are young we are too innocent to understand what jawaani is.바카라�

The young-at-eighty Amma was the lead character of a Hindi-Urdu show, titled Dastan-e-Ret Samadhi, which was performed at the recent Prithvi Theatre Festival in Mumbai. Based on Geetanjali Shree바카라�s novel, Ret Samadhi, whose English translation, Tomb of Sand, won the International Booker prize in 2022, the dastan (story) was directed and adapted for the stage by historian, writer, director and actor Mahmood Farooqui.

Farooqui, who has revived the Urdu, oral art of storytelling, Dastangoi, was also one of the actors who brought alive Amma바카라�s delightful character before a sometimes-amused and sometimes-teary-eyed audience. Partnering him in narrating a complex story about a victim of the Partition was Poonam Girdhani. Together, the two of them depicted different lands, different times, and the nitty-gritty of daily life in bustling households, without the help of any props or costumes. Sitting on a pristine white diwan, in pristine white chikankari kurta pyjamas, with two large candles imparting a subtle glow around them, Farooqui and Girdhani engrossed viewers for two hours on the sheer strength of their voice modulation and amazing body language.

Several reviewers of Tomb of Sand found the book extremely profound but difficult as well. How much more difficult must it have been for Farooqui to compress an almost 700-page novel into a two-hour show while retaining the essence of the original! The dastan writer reveals a bit of the process at the beginning of the show, 바카라�In a book you can afford to go back and forth in time, following the stream of consciousness, but for a narration on stage, a linear style is preferable. I had to curtail many of the literary flourishes of the book.바카라�

After the show, in a chat backstage with this writer, he revealed more of the process, 바카라�To begin with, I wrote a three-hour show. Apart from the alankar (embellishments) in the book, I, too, had added a lot of alankar. But then my producer, Anusha Rizvi, advised me to stop showing off and cut to the chase. So I edited the story to two hours.바카라� Nevertheless, the edited version retains some alankar in the form of quotations from other writers that add dimensions to subjects such as memory, displacement, borders, separation, love and longing. To Farooqui바카라�s credit, the quotations and narrative merge together seamlessly.

One is, therefore, surprised to hear that Farooqui was, initially, hesitant to take up Shree바카라�s proposal to stage her book as a dastan. 바카라�Though I had, in the past, done dastans of books like Tagore바카라�s Ghare Baire and Sri Lal Sukla바카라�s Raag Darbari, doing Ret Samadhi was daunting! Shree convinced me it could be done.바카라�

The two were on the same page throughout and, so, unlike many adaptations of books for the silver screen or stage that fail to live up to expectations, Dastan-e-Ret Samadhi succeeds in holding your attention and immersing you completely in Amma바카라�s story. Her trajectory as she transforms from a grief-stricken, lonely woman to a childlike, demanding person, bent on starting life again by travelling back to her roots in the country that became Pakistan, is both entertaining and deeply moving.

Apart from Shree바카라�s and Farooqui바카라�s perfect rapport, what makes Amma바카라�s story so convincing is the way it is narrated by Farooqui and Girdhani. The latter identified with Amma completely as her family, too, had been uprooted by the Partition. 바카라�I have seen my father restless and insecure all his life despite having a stable government job. His work required him to move house often and he was given accommodation by the government. Yet, he bought his own house each time he got transferred. The trauma of being forced out of his land scarred him permanently. He never wanted to live in a house from where he could be evicted. I have heard so many stories from him and my grandfather about the Partition that I think their pain is part of my genes now. I tend to gravitate towards migration stories, both when performing dastans and when writing,바카라� says Girdhani.

Girdhani and Farooqui portray not just the lovable Amma convincingly, but bring alive a whole host of other characters. Amma바카라�s son, referred to as Bade, has inherited all the patriarchal traits of his domineering father, who thought shouting at others was his birthright, while her daughter was expected to be docile and obedient with no particular life of her own. Later, Bade바카라�s wife has to continue the tradition of being a meek bahu (daughter-in-law). But both, beti (daughter) and bahu, unshackle themselves from patriarchal control to some extent. The daughter leaves home to live independently and the bahu snatches some me-time while continuing to live with her boorish husband. There is a telling scene of both of them standing on the threshold of the latter바카라�s house. The beti is about to step in and the Reeboks-wearing bahu is about to step out. Both are hesitant. While the beti is afraid she may not be able to leave the house again, the bahu is worried she may not be allowed to enter it again. 바카라�Both are defying patriarchy but their dilemmas are different,바카라� points out Girdhani. 바카라�I could understand and identify with both their struggles.바카라�

Transgender Rosie bua has no such baggage. Also a victim of the Partition, Rosie was rescued by a Christian missionary who educated her and taught her professional skills so she could earn a living and be independent. She pops in at the beti바카라�s house not just for Diwali baqsheesh, but regularly, to chat with Amma and give her advice on how to live a beautiful life. From herbal shampoos and face packs to crossing the sarhad (border) to retrieve memories, Rosie encourages Amma all the way.

Farooqui and Girdhani also bring alive different households, reflecting different lifestyles. Stuffy bureaucrat Bade바카라�s home sees garden parties where the who바카라�s who rub shoulders with one another. It is an efficiently-run house sans warmth, and quite a world apart from the lively household in Lahore, where Amma spent her childhood and part of her youth. When she returns, in her autumn years, to the latter house with her daughter, she can remember every detail of her first home. It was a five-storey building inhabited by a large joint family. One of her uncles was an eye doctor, well-known in the neighbourhood. 바카라�Neighbours dropped in and out of one another바카라�s homes. There were no boundaries,바카라� recalls Amma, eyes aglow with memories of carefree times when she indulged in innocent pastimes like playing carrom or cycling with her friend Kauser whose brother she loved.

The building is not the same anymore. The top floors are crumbling, there is a shop selling cricket gear on the ground floor; and the people living in it are strangers. But one of the inhabitants, an old man, recognises Chanda (that is what Amma was called in her childhood) as the niece of the eye doctor. 바카라�So, the house is both familiar and strange for her,바카라� relates Farooqui. 바카라�It is strange how familiar it is.바카라�

Amma바카라�s life is a deeply moving saga that many young women may have gone through on both sides of the divide. Loving one person dearly and marrying another, to play, on the surface, a dutiful wife, mother, mother-in-law; but some of them, like Amma, never forgetting their youth, clutching on to sweet memories. Dastan-e-Ret Samadhi has a prologue by Farooqui on the role of memory in our lives. Is it a burden or a blessing? 바카라�Memories can be painful, but they also make life more meaningful,바카라� he points out.

Farooqui and Girdhani too made that night at Prithvi Theatre meaningful바카라� and magical.

(Views expressed are personal)

Alpana Chowdhury is a writer and independent journalist