Ajoka Theatre's Bala King - A review

Despots usually have an astonishing way of rising from mediocre beginnings to great success. Hitler, Napoleon or the modern-day Saddam Hussein all had less-than-ordinary backgrounds. They and many others rose to power of epic proportions by usurping their successes by hook and crook.

The Ajoka Theatre presented a play called Baala King along these lines at the Alhamra Arts Council Lahore. Originally written by German writer Bertolt Brecht as The resistible rise of Arturo Ui, as a parable of Hitler’s rise in Germany, the play was skillfully adapted by Shahid Nadeem in Punjabi. Being performed for the last 10 years, the play has continued to enjoy popularity with audiences for its relevance to local society with its fair share of ambitious aspirants of power.

Baala, played by Sarfraz Ansari, is a pehlwan from the Taxali Gate of Lahore, engaged in small-time robberies and drugs dealing. He, with his gang of three other men; namely Papu Neola, Sheeda Tank and ‘Angle of death’ Manna Kharpainch, decides to move to the Badami Bagh laari adda in hopes of making it big in the world of intercity transport. The laari adda is ruled by businessmen who all have a price to them and who trade themselves and their principles for lucrative contracts and business propositions. Banking on their weaknesses, Baala and his men start to climb up the greasy pole of success and power by bribing, blackmailing and intimidating the businessmen and shopkeepers of the area.

Of particular relevance was an underpass contract that is awarded to a construction company in return for tremendous kickbacks worth millions of rupees and the underpass collapses on the day of its inaugural! Strangely though, the mention of a collapsing underpass hit the nail right on the head, seemingly referring to the tragic collapse of the Northern bypass in Karachi. One has to give it to Shahid Nadeem for adapting his plays regularly as per the socio-political scenario of the country which is why this play has been a hit for over a decade.

Baala pehlwan continues to force his way up the ladder and some light moments occur with the regular entry of his ‘madame from Taxali Gate’ aka Gogi Churi, played by Razia Malik, who wears the most gaudy outfits imaginable over dark glasses, plaits with ribbons in them and with a hunter in one hand. She keeps a stiff upper hand on Baala and is perhaps the only one Baala is scared of.

Eventually Baala makes a mockery of the pillars of the state. He is brought to court where he buys the judge and harasses the lawyer into giving him a clean bill. Anyone who stands up against him is either eliminated or made to submit before him by force. The only newspaper that writes against him is coerced to stop and when the editor refuses to, he is shot down by Baala and his gang. Afterwards Baala goes to the funeral and makes an emotional-cum-intimidating speech before the journalist’s widow which drew quite a few laughs. The audience particularly enjoyed the scenes where Baala is convinced by his gang to polish his oratory skills and how he acquires the fine skills of public speaking and diplomacy.

At the end Baala becomes the all powerful Baala King and wins the elections with a heavy mandate emerging as a well-suited, speech-savvy politician. The rise of Baala is an allegory of our own country with its fair share of Baalas. The inability of the people to stop his ascent upwards showed the weakness of society and the lack of collective will in ridding the system of its evils.

The play was well-enacted as all Ajoka plays are except that it was a tad bit too long with a duration of over two hours. The backdrop of truck art depicting the awami culture of Pakistan was very colorful. Baala’s gang provided a lot of hilarity with their dialogue and transition from lungi-sporting pehlwans to gangsters dressed in garish t-shirts and jeans. One of the pehlwans seemed the odd one out with his boyish looks and had difficulty tying his lungi in the initial scene.

The play was an extremely witty and relevant commentary on Pakistan’s current socio-political situation. The brochure of the play stated that after the play was first staged, Shahid Nadeem was fired from PTV because his wit hit the establishment pretty hard and people found it hard to believe that this play was adapted from a German story.