Based on the life of Nazir Akbarabadi, 1740-1830, Urdu poet.

Anjum Katyal′s work is the first comprehensive study on the life and contribution of Habib Tanvir to Indian theatre history. A playwright, director, actor, journalist and critic, Tanvir is perhaps best known for the play Charandas Chor. However, his real significance in the history of post-Independence Indian theatre is that he signposted an important path for the development of modern theatre. His productions with Naya Theatre using Chhattisgarhi folk actors established how one could do modern theatre integrated with age-old-yet equally contemporary-folk culture on a basis of equality. Habib Tanvir: Towards an Inclusive Theatre explores various important aspects of Tanvir′s theatre philosophy and practice as he experimented with both content and form. Starting with his early life and work, Katyal charts his professional trajectory from Agra Bazaar to Gaon Ka Naam Sasural, when he was searching for his true form, to Charandas Chor, which portrayed the eventual maturing of his style, and beyond, to cover his entire oeuvre.

A towering figure in twentieth-century theatre in India, Habib Tanvir was an actor, director and playwright, working in Hindi and Urdu. He founded Naya Theatre in 1959, through which he created remarkable works, drawing on the history and traditions of the tribal folk of Chhattisgarh. This book brings together four of his most significant plays. Agra Bazar (1954), set amid the bustle of a colourful street market, is woven together by the wonderfully human voice of the poet Nazir, and examines important cultural and socioeconomic issues of the period. Charandas Chor (1975), Tanvir's most famous work, is about a folk hero who robs the rich and evades the law until he comes up against one wall he cannot scale--his own commitment to the truth. In Bahadur the Wine-Seller (1978), Tanvir reinvents a nearly forgotten Chhattisgarh folk tale about a mother-son relationship in which he finds a echoes of Oedipus, while in The Living Tale of Hirma (1985), he dramatizes a historical event in which a headstrong ruler of an Indian tribe clashes with a population who want to replace the tribal way of life with newfound ideals of democracy. Enriched by introductory texts and an intensive interview with Tanvir that covers the milestones of his illustrious career, the book will be the perfect introduction to Tanvir's work for English-language theatre fans and scholars--back cover.

As the man who brought the popular and the demotic into modern Indian theatre, Habib Tanvir is one of Asia’s most important and gifted theatre directors. In this memoir, touching on both the private and the public aspects of his life with startling candour, he takes us on a journey from his childhood in Raipur to the Bombay film world of the 1940s and thence to the Indian Theatre People’s Association, offering an invaluable window into twentieth-century India. Whether he is describing his family members, friends or actors, Habib Tanvir is superbly observant and sharply insightful, capturing both the quotidian and the quirky in his distinct style and delightful voice. Written with great warmth and humour, these memoirs provide a memorable portrait of an extraordinary man.

This is not a story of death. It is a story of life. The luminous life of Safdar Hashmi, extraordinary in all its ordinariness.

The five essays in this book reflect many years of the author's sustained academic engagement with dramatic forms and traditions. The opening essay traces the historical trajectory of modern drama in Europe from its bourgeois period through the period of the liberal dissent to the more recent periods of radical alternative. The subsequent essays deal with certain specific examples of that drama in India and the West, such as Shakespeare adaptations on the Parsi theatre stage, Habib Tanvir, and Samuel Beckett. The author places each of these in a historical perspective. This approach constitutes the theoretical underpinning of the book giving cohesion to this collection of diverse essays. Although they were individually published in various journals and books in their earlier versions, they have been substantially revived and updated by the author for this volume. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The Spirit of the Muse is an illuminating series of intimate conversations with some of the greatest contemporary classical performers, artists and writers. Presented in this unique collection are rare insights into the creative process and responses to questions such as: Does great personal suffering help produce great art? What are the internal processes that precede the surrender to the moment(s) of creativity? How does one balance the imperatives of structure with spontaneity? What is the role of an audience for an artist? How does he or she respond to critics and criticism? Is it useful to be a "good" human being to be a "good" artist? Does the creation of an enduring work of art compensate for a fear of mortality? Ranged in the book are musicians such as Pandit Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin together, Zubin Mehta and L. Subramaniam; painters Satish Gujral and Anjolie Ela Menon; sculptors Amarnath Sehgal and K. S. Radhakrishnan; dancers Leela Samson and Mrinalini Sarabhai; filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Mrinal Sen; playwright Habib Tanvir; poet Gulzar; and writers Mahasweta Devi and Indira Goswami.