Learning from the partition

Partition is a play based on stories of separation by Sonam Kalra, who was the chief singer at the event. There is a video recording of voices behind the Partition, those who have lived through it. The songs are all original compositions composed and arranged by Sonam Kalra and Ahsaan Ali, except Dost. The lyrics of the songs are based on the poetry of Amrita Pritam, Ustad Daman, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Amir Khusrau. Teri Khair Puchhde Ravaangey was based on the poetry of Deepak Ramola and Sonam Kalra and finally Dost on the poetry of Zaheen Shah Tajji.

The evening saw the unfolding of this poetry through the eyes and voice of Sonam Kalra who held the fort. Ahsaan Ali was on the sarangi and Amaan Ali was on the flute. Tarit Pal, Manish Sahariya and Amar Sangam also performed.

Videos and photographs were part of the programme experience. The videos were excerpts from conversations with a lot of people of the elder generation like Kuldeep Nayar, who spoke about his experiences during the horrors of Partition, his faith in humanity and his hope for the future of the two countries.

Sonam Kalra said, “it has been almost 70 years since Partition and for many reasons, I now want to explore what it meant through music. Many of the stories we have heard from our grandparents will be lost with the passing of the older generation. They need to be preserved and honoured to serve as a lesson for generations to come. I hope that in revisiting these stories through music we are able to empathise, ponder and realise the way forward, hopefully a way of peace and coexistence based on a shared loss, a shared history and a shared love.”

The great Punjabi poet Ustad Daman’s lines have been Sonam’s stimulus for putting the project together. Sonam said the depth of Daman's poetry have resounded in her ears for a long time. Lines like “the redness in your eyes show that you have cried, so have we”.

Sonam’s effort is not only to weave together a retelling of this holocaust that tore our country apart but also to speak of a way forward. The programme includes recitals of quotes by famous men and women who lived during that period by Salima Raza, who is on stage throughout the performance, though in the shadows during her non-speaking parts.

Sonam hopes to take the Partition project to the other side of the border as well as a message of starting a dialogue between the two. She hopes peace overtures are carried forward on social media too and longs for a channel of communication where the two sides can reach out to each other as people, neighbours and children of the same land and learn to coexist peacefully.

Unfortunately, Sonam’s quality of voice is very mediocre. She could not convey all the emotions in the rich poetry that she had chosen for the show. Remembering Partition invokes the bleeding of hearts and invariably brings tears to the eyes of anyone who is even remotely connected to Punjab. That intensity of emotion is absent from her singing, which is pleasant enough but rather prosaic. Her sarangi player sat there twiddling his thumbs most of the times because he was not allowed to start the proceedings of the first line in the 'sher' of the ghazals. Instead, he played in the chorus and sang too.

However, this is a brave effort to bring Partition alive through music.

Produced by The Color Bakery, presented by Old World Culture at Habitat Centre, Misprint, a musical in Hindi was directed by Kuldeep Kunal. The play is about a no good boy who believes in nothing of value. After finishing college, he does not get a job. X is a nice boy, who doesn't like to upset anyone but leads a life of dissipation but is very good with his domestic servants, who all love him.

He finally makes a wager that he will get the job of teaching in a school and marry the girl he wants. Unfortunately he doesn’t get the job despite the fact that the principal of the school is wrongly told by X that he is the son of somebody the principal knew and respected. Not only that, X indulges in drinking and gambling in places near the school, where everybody can see him. His actions are reported to the school council and his eligibility is struck down.

The play has some rousing music and some songs sung by the group of actors with gusto and vigour. However, the acting was uniformly poor. The production was lackadaisical with the director being more conscious about his brief appearances on stage rather having a tight control over the actions of the others.