Sahir Ludhianvi was undoubtedly the most successful lyricists of his time, with evergreen songs like Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein and Jo Wada Kiya Wo Nibhana Parega to his credit. Actor-Director Danish Husain’s new play, Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shayar Hoon, staged at Natarani on Friday, celebrates the poet’s talent and achievements. But was he a nice person? Not really.
Husain plays Ludhianvi as a male diva, temperamental and entitled. He could afford to be. After a string of hit songs, including Sun Ja Dil Ki Dastan (Jaal) and Jaane Woh Kaise (Pyaasa), Mumbai’s film producers were willing to pay a premium to get him onboard. One memorable scene in the play has Ludhianvi haggling with a Gujarati producer, where the poet drops his refined Urdu vocabulary for earthy dialogue like “Dus Hazar Rupaiya Dega?”.
Ludhianvi is said to have single handedly raised the status of the lyricist in Bollywood, above that of the music director in terms of fees. He would write the lyrics for the music director to compose a tune, rather than the other way around.
But Ludhianvi was also famous for his feuds, including one with Lata Mangeshkar. The reason? Someone told him, in Lata’s presence, that his lyrics would not count for much without Lata’s voice to sing them. Ludhianvi was so offended that he refused to let Lata sing his songs thenceforth, preferring Asha Bhosle instead.
Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shayar Hoon is reminiscent of another play, Kaifi Aur Main, based on the life of lyricist Kaifi Azmi, with Shabana Azmi playing the role of her mother Shaukat and Javed Akhtar playing Kaifi. Kaifi Aur Main is more about the poet’s personal life, whereas Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shayar Hoon is largely focused on Ludhianvi’s professional life.
Ludhianvi never married, but his dalliances were the stuff of film magazine columns. He had an affair with singer Sudha Malhotra, who he tried his best to promote. Poet Amrita Pritam was said to have been in love with him and the play narrates the story of how she would save the cigarette butts he left in her ash tray and smoke them later. These anecdotes do feature in Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shayar Hoon, but cursorily.
In the play, Sahir Ludhianvi’s story unfolds partly in the first person and partly through a group of five actors who play the roles of musicians of that era who sit around a recording studio discussing the famed lyricist. One half of the stage is the recording studio and the other half is designed as Ludhianvi’s study, where he recounts anecdotes from his life.
The stagecraft is excellent, as is the rendering of Ludhianvi’s songs by the actors. Introducing the play, Natarani director Mallika Sarabhai invited the audience to sing along with actors, which was not easy, given the complicated nature of most of Ludhianvi’s songs. They did, however, manage to join in for the very last song in the play: Abhi Na Jao Chhod Kar, from the 1961 film Hum Dono.
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