‘Aisa Kwoon Hota Hai’ receives massive audience response

The fourth day of the Drama Festival 2011 was held at the Al Hamra Art Council, in collaboration with the Lahore Arts Council. The festival is to last till October 24, 2011. On its fourth day, two plays were held, ‘Aisa Kwoon Hota Hai’, and ‘Shanakht’, both presented by NGOs Dream and Wish Art Foundation respectively. While the hall was overcrowded with eager audience members, welcome addresses by Ata Ul Haq Qasmi and TV actress Kanwal pushed the start of the show.
Kanwal said that she was happy and proud of the fact that she had a chance to come back to the platform where she had started her career – in Al Hamra. She said that the drama she was presenting was about a social issue relevant even today on a large scale. She said that most of the dramas in this drama festival had an ending which gave a lesson and a message for the audience to think about.
Ataul Haq Qasmi head of the Lahore Arts Council said that it was important that art be given promotion in a positive and proactive way. “Today we have too many vulgar dramas whereas there is nil entertainment for the family. These dramas should be replacing the vulgarity happening in theatres today,” he said.
Aisa Kwoon Hota Hai was written by Nasir Naqvi and directed by Razia Malik.
The play started off with a couple being wedded to each other. In the next scene there is a wedding too, only this time the couple wedded to each other are related to the first couple. The marriages are exchange marriages, (watta satta). The main story unfolds much later in the third scene, with the setting of a house.
Fazeelat Begum plays the character of a boisterous, loud, rude and violent mother of the young man whose wedding was seen just one scene earlier. At the wedding the mother was excited and happy to give one daughter and to earn another. But in the present scene we see that she is angry at trivial issues and loudly and blatantly blames her daughter in law Sakeena for everything wrong that has been happening at home. She along with her own daughter have made life a living nuisance for Sakeena and her husband Achhu. In fact even his father is now tired and irritated by his wife constantly pushing Sakeena around (literally), and yelling at her and cursing her and her family.
Acchu often begs his mother to leave his poor wife alone, but his mother instead shouts at him and accuses Sakeena of ‘casting a spell’ on his son. The dialogues were better than your average play, at times rather witty making the audience laugh out loud and cheer the actors on, and at other times so natural that aided by the excellent acting of all the actors, the scene felt as if it was happening right in front of everyone in reality.
Several characters run in and out of scenes, but the main ones are Sakeena, her mother in law, her husband, and her sister in law. Acchu’s father rarely makes important dialogues. The play was in Punjabi, and depicted the life of a rural family. The mother was expectant of Sakeena to bring in a hefty amount of dowry but when this did not happen, she turned upon Sakeena and began to blame her for everything wrong and more than often slapped and beat her. All this is a very serious issue, but was done in great ironic and black humour, never making it so humourous that the issue became reduced to nothing, neither making it too painful to cease it from becoming a comedy.
The to and fro of the dialougues did become a bit tedious during the middle of the play and a huge chunk of the play ciould have been chopped off. But the acting of the entire crew was flawless and so left the interested audience engaged in the battle between the two parties in the same family.
Towards the end, out of spite, the mother and sister in law hatch a plan to make a stove burst and to at least seriously injure Sakeena who was in their eyes an appendage. They preferred that their son marry another time, and this time a richer girl. As the stove bursts in the kitchen, and Sakeena runs onstage screaming in pain and agony (though she is not seriously hurt) some bad news greets the rest of the family. Their other daughter (who is being wedded in the very first scene of the play) has also been hurt by her in laws and was in hospital dwindling between life and death. This causes the mother to faint and her husband accosts her. “Your daughter is being mistreated by her in laws for bringing in a scanty dowry, and you faint like this. But how did you treat the daughter of another for the same reason?” he questions his weakening and now sheepish wife. “You should have made her your daughter instead of pushing her away from the family.”
Suddenly the woman realizes her folly and begs for forgiveness, which Sakeena readily gives. At the same time, in a sweep of poetic justice, message brings in the news that her daughter in hospital is now in a stable condition and there is no need for any worry.