The Last Of The Greats, Writer Of Theatre & Cinema, Sagar Sarhadi At 85, Joins Hands With Diveyaa Dwivedi, The Versatile Actress For His New Play

Ali Peter John

I must tell you this story about that evening when I was to see a play after a long time. I was invited by my good and sweet friend,  Diveyaa Dwivedi who has had a chequered career as an actress and who she said was playing an important character in the play.

The address was Bunglow no. 120, Veda Factory. I spent almost the whole day wondering what the writers of the veda would have felt if they knew that there was a Veda Factory in this Kalyug and  I kept thinking  that this "factory" should have been somewhere near my house. The show was at 7 I left my working place which is a cafe called called Multea with my son, Ajay and we started our hunt to find Veda Factory...we kept going round and round and finally landed in what would at best be called a God forsaken place.

The last time I heard about plays being staged in hideouts was when I had read about plays being staged under the reigns of some of the great dictators and when plays were performed by little known actors like Amol Palekar, Nilu Phule, Nana Patekar and other such daring and talented actors in the class rooms of Chhabil das high school in Dadar during the dark days of the emergency. As I waled into the  Veda Factory, I was thinking of those dark times and even wondered how I could make myself comfortable in that little hole of a hall when it was difficult to know where the stage began and where the "factory" was ended.

My only great satisfaction was to see the 80 years old writer, Sagar sarhadi who had made outstanding films, especially a cult film like Bazaar and who had written big and small films  like Kabhie kabhie, Kaho Na pyar hai , Lori and some other films whose makers were basically associated with IPTA.

He was growing old, but still had his own office which was the office of his nephew the well known director, Ramesh Talwar and was still writing and living a life of a good vagabond.

The play began in a place which I later came to know was actually a stage. As the two hour long play progressed, I realised, for whatever my realisation was worth that it was a play in several parts, basically revolving around the phenomenon of human relationships which was based on the feeling of love that I have a lover of love was happy to know was still alive as mattered to people in today's tormenting times.

It was a gift wrap of four stories combined in one and at times I found it difficult to convince myself about which story ended when and why and how and how the story began. The maker may find my understanding of the play idiotic, but that is how I exactly felt or was it the Veda Factory which was more like a tin shed that had turned my head into a tin shed ?

As I expected the high light of the play for me was the impeccable writing of my old/young friend Sagar Sahab. He was writing withthe same fire, the same feeling and the same feather touch with which he used to write when I was young and he was young. His story-telling, his description of time and nature and above all human nature proved that he was still the same writer I first knew 40 years ago.

The background music which was a blend of some classical songs and some of the old songs from his films ( if I am right) sometimes told the story in a much better way.

They say that India has a shortage of good talent. I was on the verge of believing in this belief of the enlightened ones who sit in their ivory towers and pass judgement on anything that can give them some way of making a living and a fake name but watching the group of mostly young artists who have a formidable body of work in Cinema, theatre and TV gave me hope that all was not lost still. All those judges of talent should once in a way find time to pay visit to places like Veda Factory and I am sure they will have a change of heart and certainly some change in how their minds work.

There are some very big actors who have been a great support for the eminent writer and director' s to bring their thoughts alive in both language and body language.

Diveya Dwivedi who has done more than 20 films in Bhojpuri, Hindi and Gujrati and some major serials, the most important  of them being Trinetra /Kanika Bajpai’s “ Bikhri Aas Nikhri Preet”, Directed by the late Lekh Tandon, music by Khayyam sahab. Who has put in all her experience and efforts to play two very different characters and who gave me enough reasons to visit Vedha factory, worth it., only because I value the talent of Diveyaa.

Diveyaa  however excelled in the final act when she is seen at her very best giving vent to every woman emotion in a human situation. She adds power to the play when She reveals herself in the story in which she plays doctor Rashmi Malhotra and looks like a winner both in the way she dresses in a saree and the way she emotes at times reminding me of the great tragedienne of Hindi cinema, Meena Kumari.

The rest of the actors were only doing a job about which it will take me years to write and still I don’t think my opinion about them can be anywhere near anything good.

If there was one thing about the “disturbing”  play for me, it was giving myself and others the good news that Diveyaa had not vanished or runaway or given up the fight to be a good actress and that she had gone away for good, and she was very much here, to work, to win, to experiment and to excel.

Incidentally, the play was sponsored by MULTICRAFT SERVICES COMPANY(MSC)  formed by the one- woman company called Diveyaa Dwivedi, who hopes to let her new company grow and give herself and other talented, experienced and even new talent all the scope and hope they need to grow into forces and sources of hope for a bright and better future.

If you are one of the negative forces who tend to give up hope easily, look out for Diveyaa and her plans with her new company which is based on the power of positivity in human beings.

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Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News, Sagar Sarhadi, Diveyaa Dwivedi