हल्ला बोल: सफ़दर हाश्मी की मौत और ज़िंदगी
Join theatre critic and author Shanta Gokhale, journalist P. Sainath, actor Moloyashree Hashmi, and actor and author Sudhanva Deshpande speak about his new book Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi. (Copies of the book, in Hindi and English, will be available for sale at the event.)
In Halla Bol, Sudhanva Deshpande tells the story of Safdar Hashmi, extraordinary in all its ordinariness. On New Year’s Day in 1989, Janam, the theatre group Safdar was a part of and which he led, was attacked while performing a street play on the outskirts of Delhi. He was only thirty-four when he died from injuries sustained during this senseless attack.
Beginning with a record of this fatal attack, this vivid memoir illuminates the life of Safdar Hashmi – artist, comrade, poet, writer, actor, activist, and a man everyone loved. But this is not a book about one man or one tragic incident. Halla Bol shows us, close up, how one man’s death and life are intertwined with the stories of many people.
Sudhanva Deshpande is a theatre director and actor. He joined Jana Natya Manch in 1987, and has acted in over 4,000 performances of over 80 plays. His articles and essays have appeared in The Drama Review, The Hindu, Frontline, Seminar, Economic and Political Weekly, Udbhavna, Samaj Prabodhan Patrika, among others. He has co-directed two films on the theatre legend Habib Tanvir and his company Naya Theatre. He is the editor of Theatre of the Streets: The Jana Natya Manch Experience (Janam 2007), and co-editor of Our Stage: Pleasures and Perils of Theatre Practice in India (Tulika 2008). Since 1998, he has been Managing Editor, LeftWord Books. He cycles around town.
Shanta Gokhale is a theatre scholar and critic, playwright, novelist and translator. Among her numerous awards is the recent Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Theatre Festival of Kerala (ITFoK).
P. Sainath is among India's preeminent journalists and has played a stellar role in bringing the attention to India's agrarian crisis over the past three decades. He is the recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, among many others. He is the founder editor of People's Archive of Rural India.
Moloyashree Hashmi is perhaps India's best-known street theatre actor, and a primary school teacher by profession. She is President of Jana Natya Manch.
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