Mehfil-e-Urdu with Bollywood stars attracts thousands

Over 1,000 Urdu lovers enjoyed an evening with poets, Bollywood actors, singers at the fifth annual event 'Mehfil-e-Urdu' held at the Sheikh Rashid Auditorium, Dubai recently.
Among the star attractions that proved to be a major crowd puller was the presence of Bollywood actors Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Nandita Das who spoke about their upcoming movie Manto that is based on the life of popular Urdu short story writer Saadat Hasan Manto.
The event was organised by the UAE-based non-profit organisation Bazm-e-Urdu that is registered under the Community Development Authority (CDA) and strives towards promoting Urdu language globally.
Founder and general secretary of Bazm-e-Urdu Dubai Rehna Khan said: "We aim to promote this beautiful language through this annual event where we talk about Urdu and ways to promote it, especially aiming to make it popular amongst the younger generation. We have also started Urdu classes in a number of schools in India and we have managed to enrol about 400-500 students in Urdu classes introduced in their schools in India. We want to give children a taste of Urdu and then give them a choice if they want to know about this language."
Talking about the theme of the event, Khan said: "This time we aimed to centre the show around the theme of Bollywood and take our audience on a journey of how Urdu played a dominant role in Bollywood from early on."
The show that was divided in three segments took off with an award-giving section where Padma Shri Dr Basheer Badr received the Josh-e-Urdu Award instituted in the memory of renowned poet Josh Malihabadi, for his efforts for the Urdu language. Another award was conferred on Sanjiv Saraf, founder of Rekhta.org, the largest online repository of Urdu poetry anywhere, for being the flag-bearer in the service to Urdu language. A third award was given to Dr Manjula Goswami, principal of The Millenium School Lucknow, who was awarded for introducing Urdu as one of the second languages in her school.
The second segment of the show included a rendezvous session (ru-ba-ru) with Nandita Das and Nawazuddin Siddiqui about their upcoming film Manto, conducted by popular Dubai presenter Tarannum Ahmed. The audience clapped and hooted as Nawazuddin Siddiqui delivered some powerful dialogues from the upcoming movie, while Das shed light on the making of the film Manto.
Das, who took about four years researching on the life of Saadat Hasan Manto before making a biopic on him, said: "Although my Urdu language wasn't very fluent, my passion to understand Manto and his thought process helped me direct the movie. I believe that if you have understood the essence of Manto's spirit and passionate about his works, then you will be able to catch his thought process. By the way, Manto himself had failed in Urdu many times and although he was a Punjabi, his works are all written in Urdu. I can say it was Manto who's taught me whatever little Urdu I know."
The last segment titled 'Bollywood ki Kahani Urdu ki Zabani' was filled with stellar performances that left the audience asking for more. Written by Suhail Akhtar and coordinated by Tarannum Ahmed, the concept was the brainchild of Rehan Khan.
The script, showcasing the journey of Urdu in Bollywood films and songs, was narrated to perfection in the impactful voice of actor Shahbaz Khan. The interludes of live singing and music hit all the right notes. Bollywood playback singer Mohammad Salamat and UAE-based artists- Prabha, rateek, Tabu and Chhabi sang the foot-tapping melodies with songs from the classics to the contemporary.
saman@khaleejtimes.com