Mahmood Farooqui: Now I take being an artiste with a pinch of salt
It was something of a full-circle moment for the members of the Tihar drama group when its members took the stage recently at the India International Centre , performing at the book launch of The Tihar Players, a prison memoir by Mahmood Farooqui , the co-director of Peepli Live and a performer well-known for reviving Dastangoi.
Mahmood Farooqui’s prison memoir is a book about Tihar jail, seen through his eyes, and narrates the story of the drama group he started in the jail with the men in prison who wanted respect and validation.
On Sunday, in the audience, alongside a mix of writers, lawyers and filmmakers, was Naseeruddin Shah , watching the group perform.
The play drew a lengthy ovation for its depiction of an inmate’s first night behind bars. As the performers took their bows and later spoke about their own experiences, the audience responded with tears and applause.
‘I’m quite shaken by this performance’
Naseeruddin Shah, addressing the audience afterward, said he had been left shaken by what he had just witnessed.
He said, “I must say I am quite shaken by this performance by people who have finally found redemption. I have seldom seen such emotional truth in a performance even by so-called trained or professional actors, it must have been a strange mix of pain and pleasure that they experienced while performing this - reliving perhaps the nastiest day of their life .
I did not see in any of the actors a trace of complacence, and self congratulation. All the actors were intent on conveying what the play was trying to say. And to Mahmood himself found redemption in working with these people.”
Naseeruddin Shah read passages from the book, describing it as a strange mix of pain and pleasure. When he finished, the room fell silent for a moment.
Mahmood Farooqui then said that hearing Naseeruddin Shah read the passages felt like being taken back to that time.
‘This performance was from the heart’
Kapil Sibal, who has himself spent years involved in theater, also gave a similar assessment.
He shared, “I’ve also had my share of being in theatre for a long, long time. I’ve done years, a bit of that. I’ve directed some plays also. But this performance was from the heart. These people just felt what they had gone through. And the ability to be able to portray that is phenomenal.”
Tihar theatre group members gained confidence after Court Martial play
The description of the book states, “None of the men in the class had acted in a play or even recited a poem at a school event. Most could not read or memorize a script. But each of these prisoners, some of them jailed for heinous offences, came to Mahmood Farooqui’s drama class because they wanted respect and validation. And thus began the improbable journey of a wildly successful prison experiment.”
Later, in a conversation about the book, Naseeruddin Shah asked Mahmood Farooqui about how difficult it had been to get the performers at Tihar to set aside their inhibitions and reveal themselves onstage.
Mahmood Farooqui said the process had been difficult at first as most of them had never acted before, but their confidence grew with each new production and the response that followed. The real turning point, he said, came with the play Court Martial.
Mahmood Farooqui recalled, “I think I was blessed in the sense that the actors and friends that I was working with, were willing to give so much of themselves to me. They would just be doing rehearsal after rehearsal, working with lines.”
He described some of the practical challenges of the work: how the actors, many of whom were not fluent in English, had to have their lines broken down and simplified; how their range revealed itself differently across different roles; and how, during one performance, the filmmaker Mira Nair was in the audience and expressed interest in casting one of the actors.
Having been inside the belly of the beast gives you a different perspective on these soaring achievements: Mahmood Farooqui
“Prison in my life - it helped me think things through, it helped me turn things around, it helped me become sober in multiple meanings of the term.
In terms of work, before I went inside prison, it was work and whatever I achieved as an artist and the world of arts - there was a kind of an autonomy, a kind of nasha of that in itself.
But now, after going through this experience, this (whole) business of being an artist, I take it with a little bit of a pinch of a salt. (Yes,) There are artists, there are intellectuals, and there are people who think great things, and there are people who do great things.
But this whole enterprise in itself is not as charming for me as it was before. Not just because of my personal suffering, but also because having been inside, so to say, the Belly of the Beast (referring to prison book with the same title), gives you a different perspective on these soaring achievements, so to say.”
If we want to really get out of the colonial mindset, prison is the first place where we must start: Kapil Sibal
The play Jail Ki pehli raat touched upon the inhuman treatment that inmates go through in the jail.
Mahmood Farooqui’s prison memoir is a book about Tihar jail, seen through his eyes, and narrates the story of the drama group he started in the jail with the men in prison who wanted respect and validation.
On Sunday, in the audience, alongside a mix of writers, lawyers and filmmakers, was Naseeruddin Shah , watching the group perform.
The play drew a lengthy ovation for its depiction of an inmate’s first night behind bars. As the performers took their bows and later spoke about their own experiences, the audience responded with tears and applause.
‘I’m quite shaken by this performance’
Naseeruddin Shah, addressing the audience afterward, said he had been left shaken by what he had just witnessed.
He said, “I must say I am quite shaken by this performance by people who have finally found redemption. I have seldom seen such emotional truth in a performance even by so-called trained or professional actors, it must have been a strange mix of pain and pleasure that they experienced while performing this - reliving perhaps the nastiest day of their life .
I did not see in any of the actors a trace of complacence, and self congratulation. All the actors were intent on conveying what the play was trying to say. And to Mahmood himself found redemption in working with these people.”
Naseeruddin Shah read passages from the book, describing it as a strange mix of pain and pleasure. When he finished, the room fell silent for a moment.
Mahmood Farooqui then said that hearing Naseeruddin Shah read the passages felt like being taken back to that time.
‘This performance was from the heart’
Kapil Sibal, who has himself spent years involved in theater, also gave a similar assessment.
He shared, “I’ve also had my share of being in theatre for a long, long time. I’ve done years, a bit of that. I’ve directed some plays also. But this performance was from the heart. These people just felt what they had gone through. And the ability to be able to portray that is phenomenal.”
Tihar theatre group members gained confidence after Court Martial play
The description of the book states, “None of the men in the class had acted in a play or even recited a poem at a school event. Most could not read or memorize a script. But each of these prisoners, some of them jailed for heinous offences, came to Mahmood Farooqui’s drama class because they wanted respect and validation. And thus began the improbable journey of a wildly successful prison experiment.”
Later, in a conversation about the book, Naseeruddin Shah asked Mahmood Farooqui about how difficult it had been to get the performers at Tihar to set aside their inhibitions and reveal themselves onstage.
Mahmood Farooqui said the process had been difficult at first as most of them had never acted before, but their confidence grew with each new production and the response that followed. The real turning point, he said, came with the play Court Martial.
Mahmood Farooqui recalled, “I think I was blessed in the sense that the actors and friends that I was working with, were willing to give so much of themselves to me. They would just be doing rehearsal after rehearsal, working with lines.”
He described some of the practical challenges of the work: how the actors, many of whom were not fluent in English, had to have their lines broken down and simplified; how their range revealed itself differently across different roles; and how, during one performance, the filmmaker Mira Nair was in the audience and expressed interest in casting one of the actors.
Having been inside the belly of the beast gives you a different perspective on these soaring achievements: Mahmood Farooqui
“Prison in my life - it helped me think things through, it helped me turn things around, it helped me become sober in multiple meanings of the term.
In terms of work, before I went inside prison, it was work and whatever I achieved as an artist and the world of arts - there was a kind of an autonomy, a kind of nasha of that in itself.
But now, after going through this experience, this (whole) business of being an artist, I take it with a little bit of a pinch of a salt. (Yes,) There are artists, there are intellectuals, and there are people who think great things, and there are people who do great things.
But this whole enterprise in itself is not as charming for me as it was before. Not just because of my personal suffering, but also because having been inside, so to say, the Belly of the Beast (referring to prison book with the same title), gives you a different perspective on these soaring achievements, so to say.”
If we want to really get out of the colonial mindset, prison is the first place where we must start: Kapil Sibal
The play Jail Ki pehli raat touched upon the inhuman treatment that inmates go through in the jail.
Kapil Sibal who represented Mahmood Farooqui back then, shared, “The justice system in our country is, of course, deeply, deeply flawed. And what goes on in Tihar is inhuman. It's sub-human. And when we talk about the colonial mindset, I think, it's symbolic of the colonial mindset that continues. Because what happens within prison is what happened when the British were ruling us. Exactly that. Discrimination, to the extent possible. The authority with which they deal with human beings as sub humans. The food that they dole out to them, the belief that they need to be treated like animals. And I have, in fact, personally, spoken to some people who are in the judicial system, that the first thing that you must do, if you're a liberal democracy, is to treat your prisoners as human beings. And I think that if we want to really get out of the colonial mindset, this is the first place from which we must start. But that won't happen. That would happen because we see the colonial mindset, actually being perpetrated outside the prison in as toxic a manner as it is within the prison. And that's the whole struggle that we need to take up, to rip the country of a mindset that doesn't treat you as a human being, it treats you as a commodity.”
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