KARACHI: Those theatre purists in Pakistan, and there are many, who have taken writer Anwar Maqsood’s foray into the world of theatre with a pinch of salt, should go and see Siachen. Yes, his earlier plays written for stage (Ponay 14 August, Dharna, etc) may not have had the necessary ingredients to qualify as ‘pure’ theatre (lack of a full-fledged conflict, for example) but his new offering will change opinions.

This was the consensus among those who watched a special performance of the play, directed by Dawar Mehmood, at the Arts Council’s auditorium on Thursday night.

Siachen, as can be guessed from the title, pays tribute to the Pakistani soldiers who have been positioned on a glacier, which is one of the longest in the Karakoram, to keep a check on enemy forces. The conflict with India over this region started in the 1980s. Ever since, forces of both countries have their presence in this zone. Hold on. This is Anwar Maqsood we are talking about, who can’t help unleashing witty one-liners and pun-filled repartees through an array of colourful characters. So the humour quotient is there in plentiful supply. Still the core of the story deals as much with psychological hardships, caused by missing your loved ones by leaving the cosy confines of homes, as with physical toil fighting a battle at such high altitude.

In the beginning of the play, the house lights in the theatre go off and spotlights focus on a few soldiers and their family members trying to come to terms with their call to duty. The scene is shifted to the icy climes of Siachen with a little peak in the background and a small white tent pitched to the right of the stage. Soldiers appear and the tempo is set for an exciting exchange of funny lines.

Some 10 minutes into the play the Pakistani soldiers’ tit-for-tat verbal showdown with their Indian counterparts, who are only heard, makes for a hilarious dialogue (not composite, though). This includes a joke cracked from the Pakistani side about an intelligent or zaheen Sardar. Yes, the joke ends at zaheen Sardar.

Not that Maqsood forgets to have a go at his own people. A laugh riot ensues when a solider comes up with a white board and says he mistakenly thought it was a peace sign but has discovered that it is a Bahria Town advertisement according to which one could throw bombs at enemy from its balconies. As the story moves forward, an Indian soldier, a Bihari, loses his way into the other side of the zone, setting off a series of rib-tickling nuggets of conversation.

And then comes the sad part: the conflict.

Siachen basically attempts at showing the human side of a territorial dispute. There’s seriousness in the script that at times stuns the attendees into silence and makes them mull over the reasons for engaging in a bloody clash. Some might argue that the fight scene in the play could be toned down. But then, how else can one posit an argument against bloodshed.

There is more theatricality in Siachen than all the other Anwar Maqsood’s stage dramas helmed by Dawar Mehmood. The use of the spotlight, sound design and the shifts in sequences are executed well. While one understands the limits of the backdrop given the bigness of the subject, one feels that if somehow the set was made a tad more spacious, it could serve the purpose in a better way and gel with the grand effort put in by the director, writer and the team of actors. Speaking of actors, Saad Khan as sipahi Musa Khan and Agha Mustafa in the captain’s role played their parts well.

Siachen will be staged until Feb 28.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2016