The Halla Bol Podcast

Janam actors, including some from the original cast, read the delightful and powerful play, Halla Bol.

Who was Safdar Hashmi? Why was he killed? What lessons does his life hold for us today, as we fight to defend the Constitution of India and the democratic rights enshrined in it?

Safdar has ambitious dreams for the future. The narrator soaks it all in. Neither knows that it is the last month of Safdar's life.

Safdar begins writing a play for the seven-day industrial strike in Delhi. Some parts work, some don't. The narrator comes up with a breakthrough scene. Workers adore Janam's play for the strike, which is an unparalleled success. The narrator steps into the cop's role, unrehearsed.

In 1988, Delhi's working class decides to go on an unprecedented seven-day industrial strike. Will the strike succeed? What role will Janam play in this massive upsurge?

Safdar sets about giving Janam's expansion a firm organizational basis. Janam completes ten years of uninterrupted work in street theatre.

Habib Tanvir, his wife and collaborator Moneeka Misra, and the legendary actor Zohra Segal, each leave their imprint on Janam's new proscenium play. Safdar is soaking it all up, as is the young narrator. Guest starring Ratna Pathak Shah and Naseeruddin Shah.

Habib Tanvir agrees to direct a play for Janam — to be written by Safdar, based on a story by Premchand. Working with the legends is as much fun as it is challenging. Guest starring Ratna Pathak Shah and Naseeruddin Shah.

Safdar inspires a whole new generation of young actors to join Janam. His aim: to give them creatively challenging work, and to strengthen Janam's connection with the working-class movement.

Safdar travels to Pakistan for a workshop on street theatre, along with four other theatre personalities – Badal Sircar, Rati Bartholomew, Anuradha Kapur and Maya Rao. He interacts with the late Madeeha Gauhar there, as well as other artists. But Janam itself is in crisis and he must do something to break out of it. What?

Safdar is one of the main organisers of the biggest anti-communal campaign — in 1984 — in the history of Delhi. He also begins working in television, just as the video revolution begins in India. He writes his most popular work, the song 'Padhna Likhna Seekho'.

Janam tries to write a play on caste – and fails. Safdar begins writing for children; he writes plays and poems, including the well-known song, Kitaben, on the joys of reading.

Janam actors are a colourful bunch. Safdar plays a catalyst's role in getting Ritwik Ghatak's films to the world. A spectator recalls her first experience of watching a street play. Street theatre spreads rapidly through the country. Guest starring Amruta Subhash.

Janam's street plays are a hit. Audiences are gobsmacked by this new type of theatre. Safdar starts thinking about the theory of street theatre. In Karnataka, Samudaya pioneers street theatre.

Janam is formed in 1973, and the Emergency is declared in 1975. Safdar leaves Delhi, and falls in love. Moloyashree and Safdar get married in 1979.

How Safdar, like the proverbial grasshopper, joined college only one year after his brother, elder to him by four years. How resistance brewed in a coffee cup. How Safdar and others revived IPTA, and were thrown out of it.

Summer, 1987. The young narrator joins Janam and makes a disastrous debut in street theatre. And then discovers that he is a disaster at pretty much everything he tries his hand at. Safdar watches, amused.

January 2, 1989: Safdar dies; January 3: Thousands bid him goodbye, in anger and rage; January 4: Janam returns to the site of the attack to complete the interrupted play, led by Moloyashree.

January 1, 1989. Safdar is grievously injured in the attack. Three Janam actors move him from hospital to hospital, to try and save his life. The others escape, or hide. Among them is Moloyashree, Safdar's wife.

January 1, 1989. A crisp, sunny, winter day, perfect for street theatre. The play is disrupted by a procession. It seems a small enough matter — but isn't.

Safdar Hashmi was killed in 1989 for doing a play. In his death, he became an icon — for freedom of expression, for standing up to oppression, for the right to dissent. The Halla Bol Podcast is Safdar Hashmi's story — it's not a story of death, but the story of a life lived in art and activism.Produced by Ashish Paliwal, the podcast is narrated by Sudhanva Deshpande, one of Safdar's closest collaborators and author of the book Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi.