halla bol

  1. सफ़दर के शुरुआती साल
    12
    Apr

    सफ़दर के शुरुआती साल

    सफ़दर हाश्मी एक जानी-मानी हस्ती थे। पर शायद आप रज्जू से परिचित नहीं हैं। उसका स्वभाव कैसा था? उसे पढ़ने-लिखने का शौक़ कैसे हुआ? और उसके सेन्स ऑफ़ ह्यूमर का स्रोत क्या था? सफ़दर के जन्मदिन पर, सुधन्वा द[...]
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  2. Guru and Shishya: Habib Tanvir does a play with Janam
    27
    Mar

    Guru and Shishya: Habib Tanvir does a play with Janam

    On World Theatre Day, we decided to share an extract from Sudhanva Deshpande’s Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi. In it Sudhanva narrates how they made the play Moteram ka Satyagraha, a play about a gluttonous man chosen by the British to go on a hunger strike against the nationalist strike called by the Congress. In May 1988, a beaming Safdar walked in during a rehearsal to inform his Jana Natya Manch friends that Habib Tanvir had agreed to do a play with them. They decided to [...]
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  3. ‘Halla Bol’: A book of modern Indian history
    03
    Feb

    ‘Halla Bol’: A book of modern Indian history

    January 6, 2020. Breathless. I have to put words down as I read else I’ll be left with none by the end of Halla Bol. As I tumble through the first chapter, I feel I am in a film. Somewhere I have read spoilers, I know how this will end. Even so, I am on the edge of my seat praying for a miracle. Every hard detail – new shoes, a green sweater, a cycle rickshaw, bamboo stick broken like twigs, a refrigerated room – seared into my mind’s eye. The cuts are too fast, the angles too crazy. A [...]
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  4. Raising Hell at Jhandapur
    09
    Jan

    Raising Hell at Jhandapur

    Much has changed in the past thirty years: the marginally better roads, there’s even a metro station not too far away; overdriven speakers in autos playing 90s music or folk songs with a techno beat; the mobile phones, smart or otherwise; the denims and t-shirts; the many shops selling things people couldn’t have imagined back then; a community centre, complete with a building, a lawn, and a gate. While it’s debatable if the lives of the residents at Jhandapur have improved, today’s hig[...]
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  5. The Journey of ‘Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi’, Part 3
    28
    Dec

    The Journey of ‘Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi’, Part 3

    As he lay agonising over the nearly-finished manuscript, Sudhanva would share, every now and then, nuggets from the Janam photo archive. Read on. There’s a lot here that didn’t make it into the final text. (Click on the sub-heads to see individual Facebook posts.) Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi will be out on January 1, 2020. Do join us for the book launch at Jhandapur that day. << Part 1 – The Journey of ‘Halla Bol’ | Part 2 – The Journey of ‘Halla Bol’[...]
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