Aaj Rang Hai

I did not know Amjad Khan (Gabbar Singh) had a daughter till I saw her enact a stereotypical bua (aunt) in Aaj Rang Hai.

Many seers in the past, have advocated Hindu Muslim unity, but the tribe seems to be dwindling today. I think Amir Khusrau was one of them to have ardently advocated this. Mostly, such advocacy was an outcome of an amorous dalliance between a Hindu girl and Muslim boy, but seldom the other way round.

And what I did learn from this mid 60s set, which was attempting to re-live 1200s when Khusro’s father came from Persia with a marching army, was that initially, Khusrau wrote in Persian, and that, his mother a Hindu, always struggled to make sense of Khusrau’s writings, which though struck his admirers with a calibrated consternation, to his mother were nothing more than mumbo jumbo.

Empathizing with the anguish of a mother on her inability to understand what her son composed, Khusrau started writing in Hindavi and even Braj, so that his mother could appreciate what he wrote. He also established the genre of vocalization that has survived a eon of time to the modern day, and is called Qawwali. He also invented the tabla (which I once played) taking cue from the ancient Pakhawaj, which apparently his mother played.

His poem on Holi, inspired by his Guru Nizammuddin Auliya, expounded the syncretist nature of this festival, and is what gave this play its name “Aaj Rang Hai”.

While all actors emoted extremely well and lulled and transposed the audience into an era that they could barely imagine, did even exist, I was particularly enchanted by the performance of Ahlam Khan, enacting the archetypical white clad Brahmin widow, hopelessly torn between her purist predilections which prevented her from even accepting water from the Muslim neighbors young girl, and her affection for this adorable girl.