KARACHI, June 25: An audio performance of Dozakh, a short play by Ismat Chughtai about the relationship of two lonely and elderly women, was put up by Zambeel Dramatic Readings at The Second Floor on Tuesday evening.

Barely 30 minutes long and covering a few hours in the lives of Naulasi Khanum, played by Mahvash Faruqi, and Umdah Khanum, played by Shama Askari, the play takes a bleak look at the lives of women fallen on hard times, family either dead or indifferent, dependent on the charity of neighbours and unable to improve their situation.

Forced to spend their days in each other’s repetitive company, they entertain themselves by abusing and cursing, claiming to look forward to the day when one of the two is dead. But it is clear that this is just an act and that their dependence on each other runs deep, strengthened by a lifetime of shared memories, good and bad, and the habit of being together. So much so that it is chilling to think of what would happen to one if the other died.

Early on in the play, a boy wanders into their house, searching for a ball he was playing with. It is clear that the two don’t get many visitors by their desperate attempt to engage the child and later his mother when she comes looking for him. In contrast to the old and ailing women, the mother and child have other things to do and don’t linger long. Both the child’s and the mother’s characters are played by Asma Mundrawala, as is Khairun’s, Umdah Khanum’s niece. Mundrawala also directed the production.

It is Khairun who disturbs the monotony of Naulasi Khanum’s and Umdah Khanum’s lives when she suggests that Umdah Khanum comes to live with her. Initially happy at the proposal and the chance to escape poverty, Umdah Khanum agrees. But when she realises that the move would separate her from her friend and companion, she refuses to go, exposing Khairun as an opportunistic relative looking for a free servant in the guise of her aunt.

As the audience has come to expect from Zambeel Dramatic Readings, the play was beautifully enacted by all the three actors, and the fact that it was an audio performance did not in any way diminish its impact. Even as people laughed at Naulasi Khanum’s and Umdah Khanum’s good natured verbal sparring, they felt the pain and fear behind their words — of being dependent on those who do not care for them and of being forgotten. The music, composed by Rakae Jamil, was beautiful and poignant, and the background sounds added an extra layer of authenticity to the production.