Pakistani Theatre Troupe Plays in Mumbai to Build Bonds

AWAIS Javed (22) fought with his parents. Mohammad Hanif (22) has put his plans of taking the civil services exam on hold. Rana Waqas Ahmed (22) juggles his lectures in physiotherapy with rehearsals.

All this for theatre—and peace between India and Pakistan.

Twenty-one students from various educational institutions in Lahore are in Mumbai—for the first time—hoping to establish bonds across borders through theatre.

Members of the 18-year-old Pakistani theatre group ‘Punjab Lok Rahs’, they will be performing Sidq (Truth)—it’s a play on revolutionary Shaheed Bhagat Singh and the freedom movement in the 1930s—at Mumbai, Pune, Aurangabad and Nagpur over the next six days.

The central character is Ram Saran Das who initially betrayed Singh under the influence of the British but returned after realising his folly.

‘‘We wanted to perform a play with a cross-border context. And Bhagat Singh was not a Sikh hero. He was a hero of the people,’’ Shoaib Iqbal (24), a computer graduate who’s directing the play, explains…