To Sara,with Love

Azmi had her own tryst with her art. “For two years,my family didn’t have a clue I was doing theatre. They didn’t think of it as a ‘respectable’ profession. I would rehearse at Shankar Market at Connaught Place and then rush home to Sarojini Nagar through the winter fog and summer heat,all the time scared that somebody would find out,” says Azmi,who was part of the Delhi-based Asmita Theatre Group for a decade. “When I finally came clean,my parents hit the ceiling.”

Azmi,in her thirties,is a veteran of more than 40 plays at NSD and has worked with city’s directors like Anuradha Kapoor and Mohan Maharishi. By 2006,she was itching for a new challenge. “I decided to move to Mumbai. Within six months,I landed my first film,Chak De India,as Rani Dispotta,” she recalls. Though she became well-known as “the hockey player from Jharkhand” with Chak De …,Azmi kept returning to theatre. Two years ago,she asked her old friend,Delhi-based scriptwriter Shahid Anwar,to write a solo play for her. The result was Sara,which Azmi calls a “bigger challenge than what I had expected”.

For one hour,she fills the stage with multiple personalities,playing not only Shagufta but also 15 other characters,ranging from the poet’s four husbands to her mother and brother. Dattani,she adds,“gives actors their space”,while producer Tarun Negi helped out with the research. “Shagufta’s poetry is lyrical yet hard-hitting. She wrote about women,from their yearning for love in her early works to their political position later on,” says Negi.

The Shiv Sena has come out against the play,saying it contains obscene dialogue,but Azmi says she isn’t bothered. “There will always be problems. Some,you shouldn’t bother about,” she says. Shagufta would have approved.

The play will travel to Delhi later this summer