Pak activist who used theatre to promote peace

Sarika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 25

When it next rains in Lahore, Madeeha Gauhar would not be there to wonder if it is raining in Amritsar too. One of Pakistan’s topmost theatre directors and an untiring advocate of peace among India and Pakistan, she died on Wednesday morning. She had been battling cancer for four years. She was 62.

A votary of peace and harmony between the two countries, the founder of Ajoka Theatre had been visiting the country often with plays directed by her and written by her husband, Shahid Nadeem. The most famous of her plays was “Bullah” based on the funeral procession of Sufi poet Bulleh Shah that she brought to India several times. In 2003, when Madeeha had brought the landmark play to Punjab, Ajoka had become a household name here.

Her theatre group was active in organising festivals to promote the shared culture of the two countries. While in March 2004 she organised an India-Pakistan Women’s Theatre Festival in Lahore, she followed it up with an Indo-Pak theatre festival “Panj Paani”. In 2011, when the theatre group was refused visa to come and perform in India, she was heartbroken. Ajoka’s performance of “Mera Rang De Basanti Chola” at Mela Ghadari Babeyan Da in Jalandhar had been much awaited and was duly missed.

However, she kept coming back after some time, making several trips a year. Her close friend, thespian Kewal Dhaliwal says Amritsar’s theatre scene would not be the same any more. He tells that Madeeha, whose plays have questioned Taliban, maulvis and even burkha, would visit the city very often, her last being in December. “Whenever she would come visiting, she would bring along khataiyaan and pateesa. And on her way back, she would take home kaju barfi and tandoori kulchas,” he says.

His theatre company Manch Rangmanch and Ajoka were to organise a festival to commemorate 70 years of the Partition. “The festival would now be dedicated to Madeeha,” says Dhaliwal, adding that while she had been diagnosed with cancer four years ago, she bounced back with even more vigour after each period spent at the hospital.

Mohali-based theatreperson Anita Shabdeesh, who twice attended theatre festivals organised by Madeeha in Pakistan as part of late thespian Gursharan Singh’s drama company, says it is a weird feeling to have lost such a towering personality who was so full of love for India. “All her life she fought borders and ban on visas and today we can’t even go and pay our respects to her,” says Anita, who recently performed Ajoka’s play ‘Challi Kithe Jaave’ in Mohali, Chandigarh and parts of Haryana.

During her December visit, she had visited the Partition Museum in Amritsar with Dhaliwal and cried bitterly. She had asked why so many people had to die; why a nation had to be divided... Answers, anybody?