The comedy that never grows old
Taleem-e-Balighan has been part of Pakistan longer than most of the people in the audience who saw it in the first week of the ongoing Pakistan Theatre Festival (PTF) at Arts Council Karachi. Originally written by Khawaja Moinuddin in the 1950s and adapted for the stage by director Farhan Alam Siddiqui in 2023, the play was nothing short of a laugh riot, if one can summarise it in simple words. It didn’t disturb the essence of the original script and only updated it for the mobile-carrying audience otherwise it would have looked outdated.
Talking to The Express Tribune, the director Farhan Alam Siddiqui said that the idea for this play came to him in 2012 and since then he has been performing the play in different places. He said that since the play is relatable after so many years, they decided to perform it at the PTF as a tribute to the writer Khwaja Moinuddin.
He went on to add that as a director he didn’t change a single word in the original script, because it was perfect. “Whatever additions the audience experienced in the play were mine,” says Siddiqui. “Without which the newer generation wouldn’t have found the play amusing. He also said that the current situation of Pakistan is ideal for such a play and it was sort of impossible to ignore the resemblance mentioned in the original play and what we are going through.
According to the director, by showing the clueless Master Sahib with his mobile in his hand, he has targeted the elders of every family who believe everything that appears on social media, something that the younger audience was able to relate to. While explaining the reason for modernising the play, he said that the cars on the road today use the same inner technology as their predecessors, and the uplift is done to the body; similarly, the latest version of Taleem-e-Balighan is also following its predecessor, and the idea is the same as the source material.
The Plot
Taleem-e-Balighan revolves around a madressah for adults where people from different walks of life have enrolled to learn basic education such as reading, writing, adding, subtracting, etc. However, due to budget cuts and an incompetent teacher, the students – a barber, a butcher, a milkman, a washer, and a ‘Khan Sahib’ – learn less and have a field day while studying.
Not only do they get blamed for breaking ‘unity, faith and discipline’ but also find out that their teacher is not the righteous kind of person he preaches them to be. He might be older than them in age but his antics aren’t different and when he has no answer to the questions often asked by the pupils, he cons them with his reply which is nowhere near the real answer. Through the education system, the writer takes the audience on a satirical and humorous journey where everyone is a loser, except those off the stage, watching the play unfold.
The Good
First things first, many directors have tried to recreate TV dramas or old theatre plays on stage but not many have excelled in this exercise. Siddiqui must be commended for a job well done since he managed to make the audience laugh on a drama that has been aired repeatedly on TV and has been brought back to the stage on countless occasions.
The reason why the audience was able to relate to the humour was because the director intelligently incorporated current humour in the script. When Master Sahib’s character reads a message on his phone about India reaching the moon, he brushes it aside by saying that no matter where they go, ‘We will go to Heaven!’ Similarly, when the Master Sahib asks the students about Mohammad Bin Qasim and they reply that he was a graduate, he added that had he been that he would have been a rider for a food company.
The laptop provided by the government, the constant change of curriculum, the overuse of mobile phones, and the fear of Khan Sahib were hints that the audience enjoyed during the show. The highlight however was the singing segment where the students sang famous film songs and the Master Sahib answered their queries to the best of his abilities, which was not up to the mark at all.
Add to that the spam messages sent by one of the students and you have a play that deserved more than just one show at the festival, and one hopes that more shows would be in the pipeline once the PTF concludes. One must also mention the cast members for trying their best to deliver iconic lines in their own way and although Farhan Rahim’s Qasai and Ajnesh Dodeja’s Shamshoo Hajjam might not be better than the late veteran actors Subhani Ba Yunus and Qazi Wajid’s depiction, yet they were able to make the audience laugh and applaud.
While Shehryar’s Doodhwala, Asim’s Dhobi, and Ali Raza’s Khan Sahib were also able to garner claps, it was Owais as Maulvi Sahab who kept the audience on the edge of their seats. He didn’t try to emulate the great (late) Mehmood Ali, but added his own flavour in the character which is what made it fresh, comic, and memorable.
The Bad
Since the play featured students of the Arts Council Repository Programme, who are not that familiar with working in front of a large audience, there were a couple of issues that could have been handled well, the biggest being the loss of Master Sahib’s mustache during the performance. Although he managed it well, it would have been handled in a better manner had there been a senior actor on stage like the director himself, instead of a novice. Secondly, the person playing his wife was too loud and came across as a mumble for the audience who were unable to understand whatever she said from behind the stage.
Considering the play was updated for the audience of 2023, it would have been better had the identity of the Doodhwala either been changed or omitted altogether. There are hardly any Malbaris living in Pakistan so had the director changed him to a Balochi or someone from the Gilgit-Baltistan region, that would have worked well.
However, according to the director, there is a method behind this madness as well. “Since the character of Doodhwala was a mixture of both the Doodhwala and the Malbari in the original play, we decided against cutting out the Doodhwala character completely. We tried to stay as close to the source material as we could and used the script in its entirety, which is our way of acknowledging the brilliance of Khawaja Moinuddin” says Siddiqui.
He also addressed the question regarding his absence from the play as the main lead. “In this PTF alone, I am acting in five different plays which is one of the reasons why I didn’t say yes to acting in Taleem-e-Balighan. When you act and direct a play simultaneously, it gets risky and I wanted to avoid that.’
He also said that in the last 11 years, he has performed in this play numerous times and it was time to give the opportunity to Arts Council students who did a great job. “This isn’t my only play as a director in PTF,” says Siddiqui. “I will be directing another play Ik Yaad during the festival which is a psychological drama penned by me as well. That’s why I decided to give the students a chance to show their mettle and I am glad they didn’t disappoint me, or the audience with their performance.’
The Verdict
It would be hard to believe that Taleem-e-Balighan was written originally for Radio Pakistan way back in 1956, and was adapted a decade later for TV. Since then, it has been on the number one list of all those who have grown up in Pakistan and have observed the country and its people closely. The newer version, featuring a fresh cast and a knowledgeable director, tries to recreate the magic to the best of their abilities and deliver which is nothing short of a compliment.
The way the director has executed an already popular play and made it relatable is what helps it stand out in the current plethora of theatre plays. One thing that makes the audience sad is that the more they watch the drama, the more they realise that nothing has changed in Pakistan. One hopes that sooner than later, someone comes along and changes the system for the better so that Taleem-e-Balighan begins to be taken as an outdated play, and not as something that is relatable even after 65 years.
Omair Alavi is a freelance contributor who writes about film, television, and popular culture. All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer