An evening of songs, poems, spoken word performances and collaborations in Hindustani and Urdu brings the warmth of a mehfil to Mumbaikars
Rahat Indori, Tajdar Junaid and Sabika Abbas Naqvi will perform on Saturday
It was during their annual spoken word festival in January that the organisers at Kommune witnessed an overwhelming response to the shayari of veteran Urdu poet and lyricist Rahat Indori. "Imagine young listeners learning to say 'wah wah' as Rahat Indori did, what I would call, his swag on stage. It then struck us: could this era of emojis be missing the warmth of Urdu and Hindustani?" recalls Tess Joseph, a director of the artistes' collective. And that's how the idea of Mehfil, an evening of spoken word performances and recitals in the mellifluous languages, was born.
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The event this Saturday will see contemporary lyric, dialogue and screenplay-writer Kausar Munir; singer-songwriter Ankur Tewari; performance poet, lyricist and screenwriter Hussain Haidry, and gender rights activist Sabika Abbas Naqvi among other artistes take the mic. Indori will sign off the evening with a recital.
"As with all our events, our aim was to also offer this platform to new voices and so, in the run-up to Mehfil we invited entries for Mauka-e-Mehfil, which were judged by [Kommune founder] Roshan Abbas and [storyteller] Mehak Mirza Prabhu," informs Joseph. From over 200 submissions, three winners will share the stage with the artistes. An interesting collaboration is also on the cards with Abbas jamming with musician Tajdar Junaid.
In times when Internet lingo is making its way into the way we speak, and few things are written without hashtags, is this revival of interest in Urdu a fad or is it here to stay? "For another of our recent events on World Poetry Day, the highest number of entries we received were in Hindi and Urdu. And the level of writing has only gone up over the years," Joseph states, adding, "The use of social media is to get the word out. The beauty lies in the fact that they can be used in any language."
On: April 6, 5.45 pm
At: Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir, Bandra West.
Log on to: insider.in
Entry: Rs 999 onwards
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