'Romeo Majaz' actor Ali Haider talks about Urdu language and its connect with theatre

Romeo Majaz, an Urdu musical poetry show revolves around a legendary poet Asrar ul haq Majaz. Known as the king of Urdu romantic poetry, Majaz was madly in love with a married woman which he could not come to terms with. The main character is played by Murad Ali, who has previously acted in films like ‘Dil to Pagal hai’, ‘Iss raat ki subah nahi and ‘Haasil’ along with Ali Haider, who plays the character of Josh Romeo; another legendary poet who was a close friend of Majaz.

The entire play is a juxtaposition of Majaz's soul-stirring words and Minu Bakshi’s beautiful poetry from her book 'Tishnagi'. While Minu Bakshi can’t think of any other language as romantic as Urdu because of her connect with the language, Ali Haider feels that the language used today in the flag name of Urdu is not Urdu but ‘Hinduvi’ which is the amalgamation of Hindi and Urdu. He feels that it is this language that brings in the ‘vibrance of romance that gives rise to a marvelous poetry’.

When asked about whether theatre has taken a backseat in the age of commercial cinema, Minu Bakshi promptly said that people won’t come unless you’ve a Bollywood film but there’s still a resurgence of stage plays with this generation as far as she can see. “Every time I go to Mushairas, it amazes me to see the number of people present there. Cinema is a good medium but rather than doing mindless films, we should make good use of it."

Ali, who’s currently working on a feature film with Tigmanshu Dhulia, director of ‘Paan Singh Tomar’ quoted Rumi to advice the younger generation to experiment with their life and pursue theatre if they are passionate about it. He said, “You’ve to be wise, crazy and drunk in love. If you’re too careful, love will never find you. You need to try out".

While both of them believe that all the actors who have done meaningful cinema are somewhere related to theatre, their favorites include Naseerudeen Shah, Irrfan Khan, Om Puri and Deepak Dobriyal.

The show that opened to a good response in Mumbai, is soon to be staged in Delhi.