Bazm-E-Dagh review: Hitting the right spot

M. Sayeed Alam’s ‘Bazm-E-Dagh’ highlights the life and times of the poet who reached out to the common man as well as elite

ABSORBING DRAMA A scene from “Bazm-E-Dagh"

Founded in 1989, Pierrot’s Troupe under the artistic direction of Dr. M. Sayeed Alam, actor, writer and director, has built up a large number of audiences who love to hear impeccably delivered dialogue both in Urdu and Hindi. His productions radiate with excellent acting by performers like Tom Alter, Ashok Purang, Digambar Prasad, Niti Phool, Harish Chhabra, Rakesh Bedi, Salim Shah, Harish Chhabra, Uday Chandra and Simple Paul. The way these productions capture the glorious mushaira tradition with great Urdu poems recitation fascinate the audience. The production of “Lal Qila Ka Aakhiri Mushaera” is enough to illustrate this point. Its latest offering “Bazm-E-Dagh" was presented at the recently ended 29th Urdu Drama Festival at Shri Ram Centre organised by Urdu Academy, Delhi.

Written by Prof. Ibn-e-Kanwal, the play is directed by Dr. Alam. The narrative is not unfolded in the linear style. It opens with the aged and critically sick Dagh struck with paralytic attack. The action is set in his room with two persons attending on him. Famous tawaif, Akhtarjaan is singing, sitting at some distance, hoping that her singing will sooth Dagh’s ailing nerves. Looking back in the mixed feeling of pain, anger and elevation, he reveals his life, time and his romantic poetry that has cast spell on the common man as well as the elite.

Fascination for poetry

He remembers his childhood, his fascination for poetry as an adolescent and his mother and his affairs with nautch girls who adored him and his poetry. His journey of life and development of his poetic genius are depicted through flashback scenes. The action shifts from the present to the past and vice verse. This device imparts intricacy to the narrative and a sense of suspense. In this process, he gives glimpses of his life in Lal Quila when his mother re-married Mughal crown prince Mirza Muhammad Fakhroo after her husband was hanged. We know about his life at Rampur Estate after he and his mother left Lal Quila in 1856 looking after horses and finally his stay at Hyderabad where he died at the age of 75. The production gives us the sense of the turbulent time before and after 1857, the First Indian War of Independence, in which the poet lived and wrote poems.

Director Dr. Alam has innovatively designed his production with downstage right setting the present and the past is unfolded in the centre stage and upstage.

In the lead role of Dagh, Dr. M. Sayeed Alam creates a convincing portrait of his character who has led a life of struggle, attaining heights of popularity as a poet and at the last moment of life revealing his past, making great efforts to speak. Saman Salman’s mother of Dagh is a well-mannered woman admired by men of high society. (Repeat show at LTG on November 26).