Inside Out with Iqbal Niyazi

This Sahitya Kala Parishad Award-winning playwright has finally published a compilation of his seminal works.
Mohammed Wajihuddin

Mumbai, February 8: What is Iqbal Niyazi’s ‘first book’ Sab Theek Hai about?
A prominent Urdu playwright-director, Niyazi’s book comprises his five best-known plays, including the Sahitya Kala Parishad Award-winning Aur Kitne Jalianwalla Bagh. And critics in Urdu journals are already raving about it. “I never realised this book was so important,” says the 44-year-old, who has written over 30 plays in the last two decades.

Why has he written 17 versions of Aur Kitne Jalianwalla Bagh?
When he first penned it in 1982, it won him the Best Script Award at the Indian People’s Theatre Association’s (IPTA) inter-college drama competition. “I wrote it to protest the corruption and criminalisation of politics in our society. We all live in a fortified ground, like Jalianwalla Bagh, and are being assaulted all the time,” feels the playwright, who began writing and directing plays while studying at Ismail Yusuf College, Jogeshwari. There he also adapted Neil Simon’s plays like Barefoot In The Park as Deewana Hoon Pagal Hoon, and The Odd Couple as Aa Bail Mujhe Maar. “But as I grew older, I saw new forms of corruption. Only the faces changed; the crime thrived,” he shrugs.

Why is drama an essential outlet for him?
“Agar natak na likhoon to pagal ho jaaon (If I don’t write plays, I will go mad),” explains Niyazi, who set up his own group, Kirdar, a decade ago. Along with larger political issues, his work also tackled the social milieu. One of his more popular plays, Amma Main Kya Karoon, is a hilarious Muslim social satire, “showing how a middle-class family copes with day-to-day problems,” explains Niyazi, whose father, Shor Niyazi, was an actor with famous Parsi Theatre director Agha Hashr Kashmiri. “I grew up listening to my father talk about Agha and his plays. So I guess it came to me naturally,” he says.

What about his research work on Habib Tanvir?
His doctoral work on the theatre doyen is almost complete. “Three years ago, I decided to do my thesis on Habib saab. When I approached him, he was pleasantly surprised: ‘You are the first person who will do a paper on me, in Urdu. I am quite excited’,” recalls Niyazi, who had extended interactions with Tanvir at the latter’s Bhopal house. “Apart from being a great artiste and director, he’s a man of determination. See how he has nurtured his Naya Theatre in Chhattisgarh. He has kept alive the folk culture of Madhya Pradesh through his plays,” feels Niyazi, who hopes to submit his dissertation to the University of Mumbai in a few months.”Habib saab is getting older and frailer. He told me to bring it out in his lifetime.”

What does he next have up his sleeve?
He’s now working on a book of plays, based on popular stories in Urdu. “It’s called Kahaniyon Ka Rangmanch and will include several authors, including Mumbai-based Salam Bib Razzak and Sajid Rashid. It should be out in a few months,” he informs.


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