This new play by Danish Husain is inspired by legendary lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi and dwells on cinema’s evolving lyrics

Main marna nahin chaahtardquo were the last words of a towering resident of JuhuFifty years later he has 63000 hashtags to his name on Instagram the digital residence of millennial and GenZ South Asians who didnrsquot even witness the living legendIn the same neighbourhood Prithvi Theatre will today be staging Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shayar Hoon a new play on the life and work of Urdu poet and Hindi film lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi or Abdul Hai as part of the 11th Hoshruba Repertory FestivalA postal stamp of Sahir Ludhianvirsquos was released at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi in 2013 PicGetty ImagesThis play on Ludhianvirsquos life by six performers including four musicians simulating a 1960s recording studio recreates popular film songs written by him Actor Danish Husain has directed it and coproduced it with Hyderabadbased Amita Talwar of NGO Art for Causes Husain combined scripts of two earlier plays on Ludhianvi a first person soloact written by Mir Ali Husain and an Urdu dastaangoi performance by Himanshu Bajpai ldquoThere will also be audiovisual slides of important events from Sahirrsquos liferdquo shares HusainFor his coproducer Talwar it had been a longheld dream to make documentaries on six of her favourite lyricists including Ludhianvi she ended up making only one on Kaifi Azmi for Doordarshan ldquoI always wondered who are the people writing these beautiful lyricsrdquo says TalwarLudhianvirsquos debut book Talkhiyaan 1943 is likely the mostsold Urdu poetry book after grandman Mirza Ghalibrsquos He was a 23yearold just out of college when he wrote the book whose poems also turned into our mosthummable lyrics and romantic anthems especially in albums from Pyaasa to Kabhie KabhieAmita Talwar Akshay Manwani and Kausar MunirMain Pal Do Pal Ka paints a vivid picture of this enigmatic writer who grew up in the penury and hardship that he wrote about The exposition happens in Ludhianvirsquos own voice played by Husain and an ensemble of characters not clearly defined but in whom one can find hints of Ludhianvirsquos composer pair SD Burman Shantanu Herlekar on the harmonium and Lata Mangeshkar Srijonee Bhattacharjee on vocals The other two musicians Siddarth Nityanand Padiyar and Donald Krist on percussion and guitar respectively along with Vrinda Vaid lsquoHaayatrsquo have thirdperson narratorlike rolesIt strings his story and context starting with his birth in Ludhiana growing up in the company of his singleparent mother and sisters turning young with Indiarsquos freedom movement choosing Lahore Pakistan during 1947 Partition but moving to Bombay India two years later to evade the whip on Communist intellectuals like himIn Bombay the poet and the committed Communist converged his heart and his craft and wrote of the mazduur mazloom and the mehboobmdashthe worker the oppressed and the belovedmdashonly as a Sahir a magician canIt was a serpentine ride to enter lyricwriting He took two years to break into the cinema industry with a fated meeting with composer SD Burman who was at the top of his league alreadyUntil then Ludhianvi did what everyone coming into Bombay with some social connections didmdashcamp at friendsrsquo houses and find oddjobs to pay the bills He along with his mother stayed at progressive writer Krishan Chanderrsquos earning his space by writing Chanderrsquos drafts in a neat handThe foundation of his person and politics was already set when he came to write for cinemaWhen he couldnrsquot pay his magazine contributor Shama Lahori shivering in flimsy clothing in Lahorersquos bitter cold Ludhianvi resolved not to be poor and to earn his workerrsquos due ldquoHe demanded his own price and hersquos the first lyricist whose name appears prominently on film postersrdquo says Mir Ali who along with Raza Mir has also written Anthems of Resistance a book on progressive Urdu poetryHe set the fees higher and even earned the disapproval and boycott of star composers when he demanded that his fee be at par with composersrsquo and a rupee moreHe also did lesscheeky advocacy for lyricists before the then Information and Broadcasting minister BV Keskar The ask was granted with each song its writerrsquos name was announced over state broadcaster All India Radio thatrsquos how generations of listeners know the weavers of words that move usldquoSahir saahabrsquos political ideology was not just for literary effect it was his lived realityrdquo says Kausar Munir contemporary lyricist and the first woman to win a Filmfare Award for lyricwritingOn a stateorganised event to commemorate Mirza Ghalibrsquos death centenary in 1969 Ludhianvi marked his presence by reciting a poem against the stepchild treatment of Urdu since The Partition Such treatment was multifaceted but notably at AIR which banned film music for halfadecade for its usage of Urdu lyrics notes Anthems of Resistance Just a year earlier in 1968 the Indira Gandhi regime pushed The Official Language Resolution to promote Hindirsquos usage That project continues till date by grouping regional languages under Hindi to inflate Hindirsquos importance and its number of speakers Hindustani the common register of Hindi and Urdu also vanished from the census as a consequenceIn 1957 when Guru Dutt and Ludhianvi collaborated on Pyaasarsquos sharp lyrics India was newly independent from British Rule and the progressive cine artistes were fearless in criticising the regimersquos inadequaciesldquoNobody wrote overtly political songs other than Sahir Ludhianvirdquo says Akshay Manwani the writer of Ludhianvirsquos biography in EnglishAt other times Ludhianvirsquos truthtopower lyrics were even deleted by the Censor Board Jitni bhi buildingen thiin sethon ney baant li hain footpaath Bambai ke hain aashiyaan humaara The wealthy have usurped all the buildings and left us to shelter on Bombayrsquos footpathsldquoSahir saahabrsquos uniqueness lies in that he gave his socialist secular even revolutionary thoughts a hopeful and poetic idiomrdquo says Kausar Munir As in this Dhool Ka Phool song for Yash Choprarsquos directorial debut ldquoNafarat jo sikhaaye woh dharam tera nahin hai insaan ko jo raundey woh qadam tera nahin hai Your religion shouldnrsquot teach you hatred your actions shouldnrsquot harm another personrdquoLudhianvi wasnrsquot the only one producing such lyrics There were other progressive Urdupoetlyricists like Shailendra Pradeep Kaifi Azmi Jan Nisar Akhtar Ali Sardar Jafri and Majrooh Sultanpuri Yet he stood out ldquoShailendrarsquos work is at a parallel with Sahirrsquos if not betterrdquo Manwani says Filmmakers would refer to Ludhianvirsquos poems and accommodate his poetry into the film while Shailendra would write according to the situation in the film Manwani saysThe canvas of Hindi cinema was painted in Urdu by Ludhianvi and his contemporaries ldquoThe word lsquosanamrsquo for beloved in common parlance may be the gift of Hindi film lyricsrdquo says Mir Ali His book lists other such words ilteja request jaaneman my life saaqi winebearerldquoContemporary lyrics donrsquot speakrdquo says Talwar ldquoIt is a khichdi of Hindi Urdu and the intensity is absentrdquoMunir attributes such construction of lyrics as a reflection of our times ldquoOur preoccupation is with the business of lyricwriting providing commercial successrdquo she says None of our spoken languages is pure anymore whether itrsquos English Hindi or UrduldquoA lyricist is a function of his timesrdquo Manwani says He feels itrsquos a pressure on lyricists to maintain older linguistic traditions while everyone from actors and filmmakers have been allowed to evolve in style since Ludhianvirsquos eraAll of them hold hope though ldquoSahir will always be relevantrdquo Talwar says and hopes for the younger generations to discover Ludhianvi through his romantic numbers that always wove in endearing nature imagery Mir Ali believes Hindi cinema will continue to popularise certain aspects of Urdu vocabulary as it has Urdu may also change in structure as it already has too ldquobut I see no imminent demise of UrdurdquoAt the end of one of the final rehearsals of Main Pal Do Pal Ka in Prithvi Theatrersquos greenroom the troupe breaks into the Ludhianvi song that is the playrsquos titleHusain and Shantanu the SD Burmancharacter musician debate if they could depart from the pronunciation of the Urdu word for poet shaarsquoir as in the original song It was decided to deviate to pronouncing it as shaayar Itrsquos the common pronunciation of this word now even though it incorrectly pastes a consonant sound over a vowel Urdu alphabet Everyone still understood and enjoyed the meaning Ludhianvi never died ldquoMain har ik pal ka shaarsquoir hoonrdquo he remains a poet for every occasion just as hersquod wished