Celebrating Sahir the lyricist

Tom Alter’s play ‘Parchhaiyan’ at HLF-2015 was staged to a packed forecourt.

Down memory lane Tom Alter brought to life Sahir Ludhianvi's journey through Parchhaiyan. Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

Hyderabad was treated to some fine theatre on day one of the Hyderabad Literary Festival with Tom Alter’s Parchhaiyan . Based on the life of poet and lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi, Parchhaiyan , was performed to a packed house with members of the audience spilling over to the staircase and surrounding boundary wall as Tom Alter held complete command over the stage in the arena arranged outside HPS’s primary school.

Spanning the life and journey of Sahir Ludhianvi, the play touched upon various pivotal aspects of the poet’s life that led to him eventually joining the Hindi film industry and penning several critically acclaimed songs.

Right from his birth in Ludhiana, Punjab, his first love while he was in college that led to his expulsion, his move to Lahore where charges of inflammatory writing led him to flee back to Delhi after the Partition and his subsequent relocation to Bombay to carve a career as one of the most celebrated lyricists of his time.

An autobiographical style play, Tom Alter’s narrative in impeccable Urdu kept the audience spellbound as they were taken along on a musical journey of the poet’s life from his early days in Punjab and Lahore to finally finding a place for himself in Bombay.

If Tom played the ageing poet reminiscing about his life to perfection, Akshay Maurya essayed the role of the younger Sahir with élan.

What also set the pace of the play was the generous dose of songs penned by Sahir Ludhianvi to highlight important moments of his life. Right from the soulful

Main Pal do Pal ka shayar hoon to the romantic

Jaane Kya tune kahi and the upbeat

Main Zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya , all of Sahir Ludhianvi’s numbers were received by much appreciation by the audience. The fact that students of Hyderabad Public School, that hosted the literary festival, performed to many of these numbers and that too with very little notice ahead of the event made the play even better.

Directed by Suhail Akhtar, the play was the perfect culmination for a day filled with panel discussions and literary events.