Presenting the Past: How Habib Tanvir Contemporizes the Past in his play Agra Bazaar

Abstract

Agra Bazaar, Habib Tanvir’s musical masterpiece, was first staged in 1954 with a cast of untrained actors in a bazaar. The musical drama is based on the life of Nazir Akbarabadi, the much-neglected Urdu poet of the eighteenth century. It was with this play that Tanvir evolved as one of the finest Indian playwrights and theatre director. In Agra Bazaar is Tanvir rediscovering Akbarabadi’s works by using hiss verses and highlighting the popularity of the Urdu poet among the working-class people of the eighteenth century. Tanvir himself writes that he has chosen Nazir because as he explains, “In Nazir’s poetry I heard echoes of optimism and social relevance. I was inspired by Nazir’s voice which was different from any other poet but was also the voice of humanity…”(“Preface to the First Edition” 1). It is Akbarabadi’s socially relevant verses that Tanvir is able to contemporize the past. The play is situated in the eighteenth century, but an in-depth analysis of the play finds out that he though his craft and the clever use Akbarabadi’s poetry has explored the social and political situation of the twentieth century through historicizing the eighteenth century.