“Main Kaun Hoon” – a concert that is a fusion of women's poetry set to music and dramatised rendition is poised to strike the Capital at the India International Centre on February 4.
Celebrated musicians – siblings Shobhana Rao, Shaila Hattangadi along with elder sister Nirmala Jaishankar will regale the Capital's connoisseurs with this concert, a musical and drama extravaganza that will showcase some of the best poetry written by the women poets of the subcontinent. “The presentation will include musical and tarannum renditions of ghazals, nazms, geets and dramatised recitations of the works of renowned poetesses like Amrita Pritam, Mahadevi Verma, Kishwar Naheed, Zehra Nigah, Parveen Shakir, Naseem Nakhat, Noorjehan Sarwat, and others. The idea is to present the feminine world view – women's aspirations and journey towards self realisation,” says Nirmala Jaishankar, the eldest of the siblings.
“It will be our endeavour to aesthetically evoke and enhance the lyrical beauty of each poem through the seamlessly woven magic of music and drama. The dramatised presentations will be by noted theatre actor Salima Raza,” she adds.
The sisters trained in music initially by their mother are known for their brilliant exposition of a rich classical repertoire as well as ghazals, folk songs and bhajans.
For the February 4 concert, the siblings have chosen works that take a close look at life and go beyond the ornamental craft. A woman's struggle to carve out a niche in the social order is evident in Naseem Nikhat's poem, one of the opening numbers for the evening. “Ghalib ka rang, Mir ka lehja mujhe bhi de…lafzon se khelne ka saliqa mujhe bhi de.”
That the concert is poised to raise levels of consciousness is easily understood from a glimpse of some of the heady poetry that goes beyond mere aesthetics.
Among the poems to be rendered is Kishwar Naheed's iconoclastic poem that is a clarion call against the narrow parochial social order that restricts and suppresses women:
Ye hum gunahgaar auratein hein
Jo ahl-e jabba ki tamkinat se
Na rob khaayein
Na jaan bechein
Na sar jhukaayein
Na haath jodein
(It is we sinful women. who are not awed by the grandeur of those who wear robes
who don't sell our lives, who don't bow our heads who don't fold our hands together).
Evocative poetry, yes, but, not, all of it is rebellious art, laughs Shaila Hattangadi. “We will be presenting an interesting collage of contrasting emotions and themes, as the oeuvre ranges from the romantic and the optimistic, interspersed with the rebellious and the raw feminist!”
The selection has intensely romantic couplets as evident in the lines of poetess Noor Jehan Sarwat: “Apni aankhon mein koi khwab sajaakar dekho, Aaina apne tasavvur ko banaakar dekho.” And the lines... “Tumhari yaad mein jab aankhon mein barsaat hoti hai, Toh khushboo mein nahayi chaand si woh raat hoti hai.”
Then, there is Mahadevi Verma's ‘Main neer bhari dukh ki badli' ( I am a nimbus cloud of sorrow). When one takes women's sensibility, there is always the overarching concern for a more humane world. And the musician sisters have chosen Zehra Nigah's brilliantly evocative poem on an Afghan boy, Gul Badshah, a victim of the war that was waged in the name of world peace. This poem makes no overt political statement yet is one of the best anti-war poems penned in recent years.
My name is Gul Badshah
My age, thirteen years
My story, like my age
Is disjointed, short
My nameless, faceless mother, Without medicines, quietly died, Buried in her burqa by father…
And I Though living am not alive.
Then there is Amrita Pritam's famed poem addressed to Waris Shah lamenting the tragedy of Partition.
The concert on February 4 holds rich promise and the trio are upbeat at doing this theme-based musical evening. “For long, we have desired to do such a concert on the feminine world view and this programme holds rich promise, as classicism meets revolutionary poetry,” says Shobhana Rao with an enthusiastic grin.
