The passionate life of the Punjab chronicler

Impressario Asia from New Delhi stages Amritau00a0 - A Sublime Love Story, a play on the life of noted Punjabi poet and author Amrita Pritam in the city for the first time tomorrow

This is the first play on the life, times and romances of venerable Punjabi author Amrita Pritam. And a major reference point for the play has been her autobiography, Rasidi Ticket (Revenue Stamp), the title of which was conceived after the acerbic Khushwant Singh said about the late poet's plans to write an autobiography, "Your life could be contained on the back of a revenue stamp."


Amrita Pritam

The 100-minute play doesn't have any mention of Singh. What it focuses on insteadu00a0 is the complex relationships that the award-winning author had with the five men in her life. Noted Kannada filmmaker and play director MS Sathyu, who's directed this play, says, "It's always a challenge to do a play on a real person. Her life itself is interesting because of the amount of prominence she gave to Punjabi literature. The play is in Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi."

Sathyu's primary objective is to make modern India aware of the legendary writer. "Here's a scope for the audience to learn about these kind of people. You don't get to know about their lives because people usually don't read their works. This is one way of reviving interest in stalwarts like Amrita," he states.

Playwright Danish Iqbal has done extensive research including reading a lot of her works and taking inputs from Amrita's soulmate Imroz, with whom she shared her life for 42 years. The painter was ten years younger to her and they never got married, but he was by her side till her last days. "It's an important factor in the play," admits Sathyu, adding, "The other relationship touched upon in the play are ones with her husband Pritam whom she was married to when she was 16 but never really had feelings for, Urdu poet and lyricist Sahir Ludhianvani, whose lyrics have graced many Hindi films, painter Hari Krishna, a friend and a great admirer of her work and her friend from Pakistan Sajjad Haider. All of them were close to each other."

The play that premiered in Delhi in June and will travel to Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Patiala and Ludhiana, has noted filmmaker and writer Lovleen Thadani, playing the protagonist. Lovleen, who was brought up in Soviet Russia, has acted in Sathyu's Kannada film Bara and its Hindi version Sukha - a film on famine. "Besides the physical resemblance to Amrita, we chose Loveleen because she was close to the author and was called her soulmate," reveals the producer of the play, KK Kohli.u00a0

u00a0The other members of the cast, who have worked on the play for eight arduous weeks, include professional actors like Vijay Nagiyal who plays Sahir, Kedarnath Sharma who essays the role of Imroz and Mangat Ram who plays Waqt (time), a fictional character (time talks to Amrita). The author's conscience is brought alive by Pratima Virmani.

The set is elaborate, with Imroz and Amrita's pictures on the walls and otheru00a0 sketches and paintings. A book shelf, telephone, chairs, a weasel and teapoy (which Amrita perhaps used for her famous teas) are the composites of the stage.

The play is based on Amrita's writing and some of her poems will be recited as well. The play is set in pre-independent India and highlights her contribution to Punjabi literature. But her most noted work - Pinjar, which was made into a film in 2003, doesn't find a place in it. Her two children, daughter Kandlla and son Navraj, however find stray mentions in the play.u00a0Amrita died in 2005 at the age of 86 and ever since there have been talks of making a film on her life. This is a significant first step in that direction.

Where Ranga Shankara,u00a0 J P Nagar
On August 26, 7. 30 pm and 27, 3.30 pm and 7 30 pm
Call +91 9810723979u00a0
For Rs 100