Tansen will spark a raging fire with his singing, and a captive Shahjehan will lament from behind a trellised window on a 400 feet-long stage that the audience will walk alongside. 181 years of Mughal history unravel in Amir Raza Husain's unique open-air theatrical presentation, where you can do everything except sit
Tansen will spark a raging fire with his singing, and a captive Shahjehan will lament from behind a trellised window on a 400 feet-long stage that the audience will walk alongside. 181 years of Mughal history unravel in Amir Raza Husain's unique open-air theatrical presentation, where you can do everything except sit
He looks up at the overhead sun, one eye squeezed into a tight slit, the other shaded by his cupped palm, before he wipes the sweat off his head with a red gamccha that hangs carelessly around his neck, and sighs, "I'm roasting."
An assistant comes by swinging a plump polythene bag that holds three Vada Pavs. That's his breakfast, which in a chaotic swirl of activity has got pushed closer to lunchtime.
He digs in, peals open the slit pav stained with hara dhaniya chutney, and disappointed, utters, "Isme sukhi chatni kahan hai? Woh tez laal wali."
That's just one among a string of setbacks to have come Amir Raza Husain's way this morning.
But when you are used to putting up theatrical productions on the scale he does (Chaudvin ka Chand saw 43 simultaneous performances across a 1.5 km long road in Delhi's Chandni Chowk, before an audience of 6 lakh), hiccups hardly matter.
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The Delhi-based director is putting up Shehanshah Nama, a 55-minute play that plucks out interesting snippets from various Mughal rulers' lives to take you through 181 years of Mughal history.
Part legend, part chronicle, it will unfold to a dazzling show of light, sound and special effects on a 400 feet-long stage that the audience will walk alongside, as each chapter of medieval history unfolds.
"It's about Babur to Bahadurshah Zafar, and no one is allowed to sit. You have a drink, mingle, snack, and when the show rolls, you saunter along the set," he says, clambering up makeshift stairs to Jodha's sun god inspired mandir.
Glancing at a painter streaking a peacock-headed pillar, white, Husain urges you to work up your imagination, turn a barren whitewashed nook into Akbar's court, where a musical evening with Tansen is in session.
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"He sings raag Deepak, the one that can light up a thousand lamps. He's in a trance, nobody can stop him. The diyas rage and trees catch fire," Husain narrates animatedly. Only Tansen's daughter can salvage the show.
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She walks in to sing raag Malhar, and a downpour douses the flames. "They'll love it," promises the man, who says it's easy to make his audience do what he wills walk, move, stand as long as he can guarantee them an evening of spellbinding entertainment. "Theatre is about entertainment.
Some tried converting it to a medium of instruction and publicity. There are just two kinds of theatre; good and bad. And I don't do the stuff that bores the pants off my audience," he shrugs.
The man behind entertainment company Stagedoor, which he runs with wife Virat, Husain has managed to crash through barriers of time and space with the logistical jugglery that's his USP.
The Legend of Ram saw a theatre built to seat 700 people on a rail track that travelled 1 kilometer through 15 sprawling sets recreating Ayodhya and Lanka.
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"The scale, grandeur get noticed, yes. But it's the story that draws the audience in. We expected 50,000 people for Chaudvin ka Chand.
Six lakh turned up. The roads were jammed. Actors couldn't get to their set from the green room.
At midnight, when we were wrapping up, a panwala offered 30 of us paans, and didn't take a penny. He said he'd sold thousands of paans that one evening.
That was far more satisfying than any critic's comment."
At: Grounds next to Grand Hyatt, Vakola. On October 3 and 4, 7 pm. Free invites are available by sending a mail to shehanshahnama@aircel.co.in.
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