Ajoka Theatre's Hotel Mohenjodaro - a review

The events of 1947 and 1971 have traumatised many a writer such as Saadat Hasan Manto and Quratulain Hyder to produce masterpieces in Urdu that elicit introspection and catharsis. Today, these events need to be looked at rationally in order to understand our social psyche and to move on progressively.

Ajoka Theatre’s Indo-Pak Punj Pani Theatre festival held this month in Lahore aimed to showcase a collaborative set of performances by Indian and Pakistani artistes to give voice to their understanding of the events of both ’47 and ’71, respectively. Sadly, the theatre company had to alter its publicised set of performances with the Indian government’s last minute cancellation of ‘on foot visa’ for the team of Indian artistes who had to cross over to Pakistan via the Wagah Border. It seems that some things never change!

According to the Ajoka, initially it was the Pakistan government’s dilly dallying with the diplomatic procedures and with much ado finally gave in to Indian artistes coming over to perform politically charged plays with content that could make diplomacy on both sides wince with discomfort. However, the Indian government’s refusal to give security clearance to the performers proved to be the proverbial last nail in the coffin of dialogue through interaction.

So what was to be a collaborative performance called Yatra — 1947 on the first day was replaced by Ajoka’s Hotel Moenjodaro. The play is based on a short story called Dhanak by Ghulam Abbas, one of the great Urdu short story writers.


Adapted and directed by Shahid Nadeem, Hotel Moenjodaro is about radical mullahs who want to take over the reigns of government in an attempt to reform and set the affairs of the state ‘right’ — as per their own radical stance. What followed was Ajoka’s trademark unveiling of a plot full of satire, music and dance. The highly-charged trio of mullahs, headed by an Ameer, succeeds in its attempt to ‘cleanse’ the state of all that is obscene and sinful. In an obvious and comical reference to the Taliban regime’s mindset, and set against the backdrop of real-life footage of Taliban and the oppressive Gen Ziaul Haq era, the new government bans everything from wine to TV, and walkman to the sari! Once everything licentious is banned, all sinners are whipped, hanged and/or stoned to death, the state becomes a paragon of righteousness for them.Such is the state of affairs until the mullahs, who belong to different schools of thought, begin to differ with each other as to how shariah should be enforced. The differences get uglier and louder till opposing factions start killing off each other. The well-meaning Ameer who tries to unite everyone is eventually murdered for being suspected of his motives.

What follows is civil unrest, murder and plunder. The lights go off to the sound of enemy planes bombarding an already dead state. Much later, some tourists visit the site to be shown the ruins of a once prosperous civilization that was destroyed mysteriously.

As with all Ajoka plays, the content was highly relevant and controversial at the same time. A lady with a headscarf by my side was terribly annoyed with her clean-shaved husband who was enjoying the satire. Both were left silent in the end. I thought the play was sensitively handled given the topic’s explosive potential to ignite opposing mindsets in our society. The radical mullah mindset was portrayed and religion or religious people were not ridiculed. Hotel Mohenjodaro is surprisingly relevant given it was written in the ’60s when hardly anyone could have foreseen the events of a polarised society today.

On the second day of the festival, a performance of Saadat Hasan Manto’s acclaimed Toba Tek Singh was held. The play has been staged repeatedly in Pakistan and India, and according to Ajoka, is particularly appreciated by Indian audiences. It depicts the anguish and suffering of a deranged man, Toba Tek Singh, who is transported away from his homeland in 1947. Manto leaves it to the audience to figure out who is more deranged — Toba or the bunch of officers hurriedly deciding the fate of refugees.

The festival concluded on the third day with the performance of Shehr-i-Afsos, based on Intizar Hussain’s masterpiece. It is about three characters who relive the nightmarish events of ’47 and ’71 that have trapped them into a ceaseless state of guilt and condemnation. With the play Ajoka attempts to present a view of Partition that, sadly, many of us do not wish to either remember or learn from.

Published originally in Images, DawnNewspaper in June 2008