Oct 18, 2014 03:35 PM
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Saif Hyder Hasan had showcased his magic with Aaine Ke Sau Tukde featuring a lone Shweta Tiwari playing almost dozens of characters on screen. He is now back with another challenging venture Ek Mulaqat, starring the talented Shekhar Suman and Deepti Naval. Based on the unrequited romance of noted lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi and eminent writer-poet Amrita Pritam, Ek Mulaqat attempts to depict a tête-à-tête that happens between the lovers but in a musical format. As expected, it makes for a great unique experience and definitely deserves a watch!
The story: On a cold winter night, Amrita Pritam(Deepti Naval) is sitting on the terrace of her house in Delhi when two strange things occur. She gets a sudden trunk call from Bombay, making her wonder who it can be, as she doesn’t know anyone out there except Sahir Ludhianvi(Shekhar Suman). Before she could answer, Sahir appears in front of her. The two then indulge in a witty play of words and poems-shayaris which brings to the fore their love for each other, the loneliness, the anger and a lot more.
Ek Mulaqat isn’t an in-your-face experience. The play is laced with poems, shayaris and a smart play of words and one need to be very attentive and devote their full concentration to understand the layered meaning. It was a novel experience for me at least and hence, I took a couple of minutes to get into the world that Saif Hyder Hasan was trying to put forward. The latecomers coming in and creating a slight nuisance(despite the play starting 20 minutes late) contributed in breaking my attention even more. But adamant I was, I soon became a part of Sahir-Amrita’s beautiful conversation and from there, the play becomes an experience to savour. One of the riskiest things attempted by the makers is to incorporate songs like Abhi Na Jao Chodkar, Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein etc but with a change in tune. These are iconic songs and such an experiment could have gone wrong. But thankfully, it doesn’t and it adds to the magic! The climax gives a jolt, though it was anticipated.
Words will fail to do justice to the performances of Shekhar Suman and Deepti Naval. This is not just another play – the actor needed to mouth the poems and shayaris written by the legends that they are portraying and it needed to be done with the right emotion. And both the actors come out with flying colours. They look brilliant together and complement each other very well. Viewers will see both of them in a new light and with lot of respect and admiration after watching the play!
Director Saif Hyder Hasan too deserves appreciation for designing and directing this one-of-its-kind drama. A lot of research has gone in bringing alive the lives of the legends and it shows. Sahir and Amrita are not just talking about their unrequited love, but also about partition, gender inequality, marriage, whisky, cigarettes and a lot more and each of these are beautifully incorporated into their musical conversation. Nothing looks out of place. The humour element also comes out very well.
On the whole, Ek Mulaqat is a well-made venture and is worth the hype and expectations surrounding it. The use of words, poems, shayaris, the direction and of course Shekhar Suman and Deepti Naval’s bravura performance come together to provide an experience to savour and remember for a long time! For someone like me who’s not much into poetry, the first few minutes were indeed quite struggling but once you get acquainted with the world that’s created in the play(which happens soon enough), the play turns out to be quite impressive and most importantly, engaging. Hats off to the makers for coming up with the play the way they wanted to and didn’t attempt to simplify so as to make it more mainstream. The play will surely have a great run and will attract hordes of people. Make sure you book your tickets in advance!
