Writer : Summana Ahmed and Saif Hyder Hasan Direction : Saif Hyder Hasan Cast : Shekhar Suman & Geetika Tyagi
EK MULAQAT Review
A love that existed more in poetry and quiet yearning than in reality-this was the ephemeral bond between the celebrated wordsmiths Sahir Ludhianvi and Amrita Pritam. In 2014, Saif Hyder Hasan captured the essence of this poignant, unrequited romance in his widely praised play, EK MULAQAT. He wrote and directed the play, and the stage became a vessel for a single, imagined night, a clandestine meeting (tête-à-tête) where years of unspoken words, simmering passion, and quiet regret could finally surface. Shekhar Suman and Deepti Naval originally embodied these complex figures, earning acclaim for their haunting performances.
Now, nearly eleven years on, the echo of that encounter returns to the stage. Hasan has reimagined the production, breathing new life into the timeless story. While Shekhar Suman revisits his role as the brooding, melancholic Sahir, the character of the fiercely independent Amrita is now portrayed by the talented Geetika Tyagi, promising a new layer of depth to this legendary dialogue. What's different about this production is that after a decade, the director has interestingly stripped the play of its songs and made it minimal, just with words. The present play has the poems in their raw form, like Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein, which were initially used as songs written for Hindi cinema. This minimalist and word-oriented performance emerges as evocative and more intense.
While the script of EK MULAQAT is penned by Saif Hyder Hasan, its soul belongs to Sahir Ludhianvi and Amrita Pritam. The director has masterfully ensured that the words spoken by the two literary titans are their own, making the play less a work of fiction and more a dramaturgical séance. It can be seen as a breath-taking page-to-stage adaptation of Amrita Pritam's biography, Rasidi Ticket. A prime example of this is the poignant anecdote of Amrita collecting Sahir's cigarette butts, which is beautifully borrowed from her autobiography and placed at the very heart of the play's opening. She recalls:
"When Sahir would come to meet me in Lahore, it was as if an extension of my silence had occupied the adjacent chair... He would quietly smoke his cigarettes, putting out each after having finished only half of it... After he would leave, the room would be full of his unfinished cigarettes... I would keep these remaining cigarettes carefully in the cupboard... When I would hold one of these cigarettes between my fingers, I would feel as if I was touching his hands... This is how I took to smoking. It gave me the feeling that he was close to me. He appeared, each time, like a genie in the smoke emanating from the cigarette."
The play opens with this potent image. We see Geetika (Amrita Pritam), narrating these very lines while knitting a sweater, the rhythmic click of her needles weaving a fabric of memory. As her words hang in the air, Shekhar (Sahir Ludhianvi) appears, a phantom summoned by her longing. In this masterful way, the entire night is woven together from the threads of their poems, intimate letters, and shared biographies.
The meticulousness of Hasan's research is evident throughout. He incorporates details like Sahir Ludhianvi lingering for hours at a street corner near Amrita's home in Lahore with a paan, cigarette, or a bottle of soda at a street corner, intently watching the window of her house, which opened to the street, is a testament to a devotion that thrived in silent observation. Thus, EK MULAQAT achieves something more profound than mere retelling; it is an act of invocation. The play resurrects the spirits of the dead poets for one final meeting, allowing them to narrate their own story. For an audience already familiar with their work, it is a brilliant reminder of the literary richness and melancholic lives of these two great figures of Modern India. For a new generation, perhaps oblivious to their legacy, it serves as a powerful and essential introduction.
However, the body of work of Sahir and Amrita, and by extension this play, is not limited to unrequited love. EK MULAQAT paints a canvas of their shared ideological consciousness. Amrita Pritam was a soul torn asunder by the Partition of India, a trauma that haunted her writings. Her searing 1947 poem, 'Ajj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu', is powerfully woven into the narrative, proving that this is a story of national heartbreak as much as a personal one.
This pain is juxtaposed with the righteous anger of Shekhar (Sahir Ludhianvi), who was plagued by social injustices, gender discrimination, and the impending gloom of post-independent India. When his iconic poems like "Jinhe naaz hai Hind par voh kahaan hain? " and the eternally resonant "Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai" collide with Amrita's anguish over Partition, the play ignites with politically charged, poetic fire. The historical detail that the Partition physically separated them-with Sahir settling in Mumbai and Amrita in New Delhi-adds another layer of tragedy to their story.
The set design is one of elegant austerity: an open terrace on a Delhi winter night. Geetika (Amrita Pritam) sits knitting, surrounded by a simple balustrade railing, an earthen pot (matka) of water, and the skeletal branches of a tree, on which a kite is snagged, its thread hanging lifelessly in the air. While this minimalism powerfully focuses attention on the performers, the projected visuals of the moon and stars feel somewhat rudimentary. Their old-school, unrealistic quality clashes with the organic poetry of the script. An improvement in this area could elevate the production to an even more sublime level. Similarly, while the predominantly blue lighting is poetic, at moments it fails to perfectly illuminate the actors' faces, a crucial element in a performance so reliant on nuanced facial expressions. The music is unobtrusive and effective, wisely allowing the poetry to remain the star.
The performances are nothing short of phenomenal. The diction and pronunciation of both Shekhar (Sahir Ludhianvi) and Geetika (Amrita Pritam) are impeccable; one can sense the immense effort dedicated to their oration and command of language. The curation of the poetry itself is a work of genius. The writer has been remarkably careful, including popular poems like 'Cigarette' and 'Memory', but only those verifiably connected to Sahir. For instance, one might expect Amrita's most famous poem of love, 'Main Tenu Phir Milaangi' (I Will Meet You Again), but its absence is a conscious, intelligent choice-it was written for Imroz, not Sahir. Ek Mulaqat is a meticulously crafted emotional tapestry, saying only what is necessary and leaving the profound silences to the audience's imagination.
We leave the auditorium haunted by the beauty of what was, and what could never be. For one night, EK MULAQAT does not just stage a meeting; it resurrects a timeless love and makes it immortal.
Dr. Omkar Bhatkar is a Sociologist and Playwright. He has been teaching Film Theory and Aesthetics and involved in theatre-making, poetry, and cinema for more than a decade now. He is the Artistic Director of Metamorphosis Theatre and Films.
