Siyaah Haashiye

Directed by: Durjai Sethi & Aakash Sharma

Story by: S.H. Manto

Assistant Director(s): Anirjit Hom Roy, Gunraj Singh, Aditya Dhingra

Production Manager: Alanckrit Jain

Form: Stage Play

Date: 5^th April 2018

Type : Semester Production

Cast

Toba Tek Singh

Manto: Kaushik Ramesh Iyengar

Officer 1: Aradhya Makkar

Officer 2: Aditya Dhingra

Pagal 1: Nirav Bhandari

Pagal Wakeel: Lakhan Bhansali

Pagal Jinnah: Anirjit Hom Roy

Pagal Tara Singh: Jasman Singh

Guard 1: Gaurav Rai

Guard 2: Jeet Mehta

Bishen Singh: Gunraj Singh

Pagal Khuda: Pranjal Singh

Beti Roop Kaur: Disha Singla

Fazaldeen: Arjun Mahendru

Khol Do
Sirajuddin: Puneet Keshtwal
Sakeena: Aditi Vashishtha
Fareeda: Sonam Verma
Shoaib: Varad Kalyankar
Zafar: Aditya Varshney
Rehman: Raaj Dhanwani
Doctor: Aashish Thakran

The Play

Siyaah Haashiye is an amalgamation of two stories written by Manto.

The first story- Toba Tek Singh shows the eponymous character- Bishen Singh, as a former family man leading a sombre life in an asylum. His life is an apparent vegetative state, partially enlivened at any mention of or encounter with his family. According to the guards who offer a narrative about him, he has been standing for 15 years, in a reclused state.

The story further proceeds depicted the lives of the various lunatics in the asylum, tormented by the partition and its very notion. No one really understood the entire concept, and in that epoch of chaos many lost the very whereabouts of their homes.

Bishen Singh personifies the idea of partition tearing apart worlds, toppling lives, distancing families, throwing everyone in a state of total disarray.

The second story: Khol Do depicts grotesque depths to which the partition altered human character. The play opens with an old Sirajuddin lying in a sea of corpses, gathering consciousness, only to the memory of his wife being butchered when they fled to what was now Pakistan. Sirajuddin's frantic attempts to search for his daughter are all in vain. Days later he meets a gang that is already carrying out rescue operations to get as many muslims to Pakistan as possible. Sirajuddin intricately describes his daughter's beautiful appearance, and that gang members promise to find her. But, every day brings nothing but bleaker hope for Sirajuddin as the gang members claim to fail in their daily attempts. Regardless he prays for the men who have volunteered to help him. One day, an apparent corpse is brought into the hospital and Siraj identifies her as his daughter. The doctor whilst examining her asks for the window to be opened, saying "Khol Do". Hearing this, Sakeena responds and gasps for breath, quickly undoes her salwar.

At first, Sirajuddin is elated that his daughter isn't dead and shouts with glee- "My daughter is alive, my daughter is alive." Soon he realizes that she has been so accustomed to rape by the very gang, that was sent to rescue her in the first place, that the very mention of the words "Khol Do" now trigger her to allow the rape without resisting.

Sirajuddin falls on his knees, questioning himself: "Is my daughter really alive?"

Memories of the play:

One of the main challenges was that the none of the first years at the time had acted even once, owing to the unfortunate halt imposed on the club's activities by the authorities. This made clear to the diros that exposure to being a cast member was of the essence. Hence, the play was written carefully keeping in mind that everyone gets a fair learning curve.
With around 20 cast members the blocking sessions were a challenge in their own.
The play had to be staged in around 20-25 days owing to some restrictions making daily sessions of 6-7 hours absolutely mandatory.
The psenti-semites actively helped in direction, realizing the constraints of diros blocking a cast of 20.
The elaborate production was smoothly completed by Alanckrit who was the production manager for the third time.
The play was opened to an overwhelming response with an audience of over 600 people turning up on a Thursday evening, and appreciating the performance throughout. The positive comments and appreciations continued to flow in the subsequent weeks, with many professors commenting about how they loved the play and missed the club's performance in the last semester.
With an astounding response to the play, it was safe to say that the club was back with a bang.