Drama is meant to be seen enacted at a stage so that we see people (characters) talking and behaving in a world of their own. That is how Drama has emerged since the Greek plays like Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s plays enacted at the Globe Theatre. Plays have, nonetheless, been read and written for academic purposes for centuries together. Reading Shakespeare’s Othello for an exam doesn’t give the same feeling as watching it on the stage. Today, we talk about great dramatists of the world—Sophocles, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Shaw and many others—through their written works which have been prepared with necessary annotations and explanations for a reading public.
Contrary to the above, radio dramas aren’t like stage dramas. They are purely auditory in nature and the listener has to visualise the characters and the story. Somebody has rightly said that a radio drama “is auditory in the physical force but equally powerful as a visual in the psychological dimension.” The ‘audio drama’, ‘audio theatre’ or ‘docudrama’ are used synonymously with a ‘radio drama’. Until the 1950s of the last century, radio dramas were very popular. However, with the coming of television in the 1950s, they began losing their audience, though many people still like to listen to them. In the USA, it has lost its significance, but in Britain it is thriving through ‘Radio 3’, ‘Radio 4’and ‘Radio 4 Extra’. In Kashmir, radio dramas got popularity through the local radio station—the erstwhile Radio Kashmir—that would broadcast dramas in local languages, especially Urdu and Kashmiri. At one time, it was a popular entertainment in the valley. Writers like Ali Mohammad Lone, Sajood Selani, Pushkar Bhan etc. were some of the popular names in this genre. Mehdi Mushtaq is one of the playwrights who we can place with the afore-mentioned writers for his skills in writing radio dramas. He seems to have begun his writing career long back when Radio Kashmir broadcast his play ‘haavas’ (Longing). He didn’t stop there. He continued to write for radio and won acclaims for his techniques, themes, characterisation and narrative.
shakkar baba (self-publication, 2020) is a collection of three radio dramas and one tele-play in Kashmiri which, according to the playwright, have been broadcast earlier on Radio Kashmir. The four drams are: shakkar baba, qaedkhana, rah guzar and naazli. The first play, shakkar baba (a ‘madman’ distributing sugar) moves around as a supposedly madman from some village who is nicknamed Shakkar Baba as he carries a bag of sugar and gives it to children and elders alike. Be it children playing in the playfield, or passers-by on the roads, he gives a cry:
Shakkar baba has come
Shakkar baba has come
Come, you people, take sugar
Free.
Although many people feel that he is a lunatic or a deranged fellow, he is quite normal which is evident from Scene 2 when he soliloquises: “There’s a lot of traffic in this city, but roads are narrow. Many accidents must be happening every day. Let me move on. Today, I’m going to go around that new colony.” The mothers ask their siblings not to go near this man. School-going girls feel that his distributing sugar is just an excuse for enticing them. A Professor feels that he is after something (Scene 4) which is why he is behaving like a lunatic. However, the Baba seemed to have come with a mission of spreading sweetness among people in which he isn’t successful. In the last scene (Scene 8), he meets with another ‘madman’ who knew him and asks him to give him sugar. But, the sack is empty now and shakkar baba decides to leave the city for it is like a desert. In the end everybody seeks his pardon, but why and he too does the same, but why?
‘qaedkhana’ (Jail) is the pathetic story of a Professor whose dedication and honesty lands him in a hospital. Not only his own colleagues, but also his wife finds him uncompromising and talking ‘nonsense’ when he objects to his daughter’s haircut. A drama in eleven scenes takes place mostly in hospital where doctors are treating him for ‘mental illness’. However, a nursing orderly understands that Professor Rehman isn’t mentally sick but has been, under a conspiracy, admitted in the hospital. When Professor Rehman is good enough to go home, he refuses and begs the doctor to keep him in the hospital. Dr Aslam suggests to him that, if not in home, he should spend some days at Gulmarg which Professor Rehman accept happily. Dr Aslam explains to his colleague, Dr Kuldeep, the relevance of his going there: “When nobody can treat a man, then Nature cures him herself. Nature is a great healer.”
‘Rahguzar’ (The Way) moves around Zoonah, a Spaniard, who is on a visit to Kashmir for writing a book. She is staying in a hotel at Boulevard. The time depicted is that of the 1990s when even visiting Kashmir was not without suspicion. An inspector of police is chasing somebody and reaches the hotel where Zoonah is staying. He gets lured to her and asks her to visit the police station for checking her documents. She is a bold lady. In the meanwhile, she meets with a reporter, Javed, and both fall in love with each other. However, Javed is already married and has children too. Zoonah knows it well. In spite of that, she asks him, “Isn’t it possible that you take care of your wife and children but at the same time give me some space near you?” Javed tells her that that wasn’t possible and suggests a way out. Both agree to keep their love-affair without any strings attached to it.
‘Naazli’ is a tele-drama consisting of twenty-three scenes depicting a ninth standard girl Naazli who has been dressing like a boy. She has yet to feel the femineity which her mother and relatives try to make her aware of. She does feel it in the end when Dr Shah’s son Amir touches her. She feels that she isn’t a boy but a girl.
Shakkar Baba portrays our social milieu. In it, we find all the techniques applied that suits a radio drama. It is a script for the artists who know how to perform in a radio play. Directions like “Change Over”, “Seen cut”, “Seen cut to flashback” and “Interior” and “Exterior” timings show that the writer very well knew who he was writing the scripts for. Perhaps, these dramas could be enjoyed more on radio than in a book form.
Professor Muhammad Aslam is ex HoD English, Kashmir University.