When the Applause Faded, Sāhir Ludhiānavi Remained

When the lights dimmed and the final note dissolved into silence on the night of 16 January, I believed it was over. The third show. The final bow. A fitting finale in Lucknow to Sāhir: Har Ik Pal Ka Shayar. Perhaps even an epilogue, a narrative closure arrived at with dignity and grace. What followed was the familiar ritual. Smiles. Handshakes. Photographs. Selfies. That pleasant, aching exhaustion which comes only after something honestly given. And knowing Sāhir as I have come to know him, I half expected him to murmur, with his customary irony, “Bas, ab itna hi tha (Here it ends, that is it).”

But Sāhir did not leave.

He stayed in the softened gaze of an audience unwilling to rise from their seats, as though one careless step beyond the Sant Gadge Auditorium might fracture the spell the evening had cast. He lingered in the silent embraces backstage, where costumes were shed but emotions were not, where words were unnecessary because feeling had already spoken. And he rested in that hushed stillness that follows honest art, when the clapping has ceased, the lights have dimmed, and something unseen yet enduring begins to take root and breathe.

Three shows. Three full houses. Two in 2025 and now a third in 2026. By any rational reckoning, the play had already said what it needed to say. Its argument had been made. Its journey completed. And yet, standing there yesterday, once again stripped of my ancient beard, of costume, of character, I understood that this journey was never about counting performances. It was about earning silences. About those hushed moments when a listening city pauses, reflects, and allows poetry to settle within it. Lucknow gave us those silences in abundance.

Sāhir, after all, was never at ease with closure. He distrusted neat endings, tidy morals, and decorative nostalgia. He lived life as a question mark and wrote poetry like an ache that refused resolution. To step into his world, therefore, is not merely to imitate a voice or adopt a posture. It is to surrender to his unease, to inhabit his disquiet, and to accept that restlessness as a way of being.

That same restlessness binds this entire team.

From its very inception, this play resisted the temptation to become a biography. Sāhir would have rejected that outright. He was not a man who wished his life to be narrated. He wanted it to be questioned, challenged, and held up to the light. Written beautifully by Chandra Shekhar Varma and directed with rare sensitivity and restraint by Gopal Sinha, the production chose instead to enter the inner chambers of Sāhir’s enigmatic persona. It dwelt on loves that did not culminate in domestic comfort, on politics that refused easy consolation, on success earned at the price of solitude, and on a lifelong refusal to dilute truth, even when compromise was both profitable and convenient.

That choice demanded courage from everyone involved. It asked the actors to stop performing and begin listening. To listen to the silences between words, to the weight of lines left unsung, and to those deliberate pauses that Sāhir trusted far more than applause. On stage, I had the privilege of sharing this space with Chandra Shekhar, who anchored the search with quiet intelligence, and with Rupali Chandra, whose Amritā Pritam was neither romanticised nor diminished, but rendered with dignity and emotional truth. Around us stood a committed ensemble that never chased attention, only authenticity. And then there was Amit Harsh, the shā‘ir cum lawyer, stepping onto the stage for the very first time, yet delivering the cruelty demanded by his role with such effortless ease that we jokingly agreed only a born savage could have managed it so naturally. (All well acted and supported by Anuradha Tandon as the mother, Aftab Alam as Jāved Akhtar, Faiz Khumār/Adil as Khumār Bārābankvi, Jyoti Singh as Ishar and Rohit Tandon as Ashfaaq.)  

But Sāhir’s world is incomplete without music. His poetry, whether in cinema or outside it, achieved something quietly revolutionary. It wrested recognition for the lyricist in a star-crazed world and placed the word where it belonged, at the centre. It refused easy escapism. Even while writing of love, Sāhir smuggled in conscience. Even while celebrating life, he held up its inequities for us to see. The songs chosen for the play were therefore not decorative interludes but arguments in melody. Rendered live by Dr. Prabha Srivastava and Pankaj Kumar, they were not sung at the audience but sung with them, breathing and responding to the room. Shyam, Ajay, Monty, and Deepak played not to dazzle, but to serve the word, which remains the highest discipline in music. Ankur Saksena added a moving and evocative background score that stitched the scenes together with quiet emotion. With poise and understated elegance, Anupama S. Mani anchored the show, guiding it smoothly.

Behind all that was visible stood an entire universe of the unseen. Stage associates, lighting assistants, set workers and makeup artists moved with a rare, self-effacing grace, the very quality Sāhir admired and embodied. They worked without flourish or fuss, allowing the work itself to speak. Sāhir believed fiercely in collective effort and had little patience for swollen egos. In that spirit, more than through any spoken tribute, this production paid him its truest homage.

Overseeing this intricate weaving of word, music, and movement were two steady hands. Rajiv Pradhan, the producer who still believes that poetry matters, and Gopal Sinha, the director who understands that restraint often carries greater power than excess. In an age intoxicated with spectacle, they chose sincerity. In an age addicted to speed, they chose depth. A special word of gratitude is due to M/s. Badri Sarraf Jewellers; this time we did not have a gracious sponsor like M/s. Prag Group/Lucknow so their timely support through last-minute sponsorship helped us reach safe financial ground and breathe easier as artists.

Yet this reflection would remain incomplete without acknowledging the truest co-creator of this journey. Lucknow.

This is a city that does not offer its applause lightly. It listens before it responds. It weighs words, measures intent, and discerns art from performance with quiet authority. Pretence is recognised instantly here, while sincerity is acknowledged in its own time. That is precisely what makes Lucknow’s approval so dear and precious to us. To receive standing ovations in this city, not once but three times, is not mere encouragement. It is an ecstasy for us.

There are moments in the play when Sāhir’s own words return with startling clarity, echoing lines he once wrote. At each such turn in the narrative, the auditorium responded differently, with sighs, with applause, with laughter, or with a charged, attentive stillness. These nuanced responses are among the highest compliments that theatre can receive.

Sāhir never believed in escapism. He believed in survival with dignity. In holding one’s ground with grace when the world grows coarse. That, finally, is what this journey has been about. Holding on to art, to friendship, and to belief, at a time when all three are so often treated as indulgences rather than necessities.

As an actor, I remain acutely conscious of my limitations. I know I did not become Sāhir. At best, I became a vessel for a short while. If the audience caught even a fleeting glimmer of his flame, it was not because of individual effort, but because of the collective labour, generosity, and goodwill that surrounded me on every side.

Looking back at the obstacles we encountered, the uncertainties we endured, and the quiet perseverance that carried us through, I am reminded of Sāhir’s own words:

Hazār barq gire laakh āñdhiyāñ uTTheñ

vo phuul khil ke raheñge jo khilne vaale haiñ

(Let a thousand bolts of lightning strike, let countless storms rise, the flowers meant to bloom will bloom all the same.)

And on behalf of the entire team, with a touch of affectionate hypercorrection and a humble apology to the master, I would add:

Duniyā ne tajrabāt o havādis kī shakl meñ

jo kuchh hameñ diyā hai vo lauTā rahe haiñ ham

(What the world gave us as experiences and ordeals, we return it now, transformed, as an offering and a tribute to the master.)

As I write this, the costumes have been folded away, the lights dismantled, the stage returned to its neutral silence. And yet, something remains unresolved. Sāhir would have approved. Art, like love, should never feel finished. If there is an encore, it will come in its own time. If not, this too is enough. For now, I bow not as Sāhir, but as a grateful traveller, to my fellow dreamers on stage and to Lucknow, a city that still knows how to listen. I am happy, and like Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, too full to articulate it:

 

“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.”

 

And somewhere, I imagine Sāhir smiling wryly, striking a match, drawing in a slow breath, and murmuring, “Achchhā huā…kuchh baat to baaqi reh gayī.” (It is well...that something still remained unsaid).

Whether those unspoken things will one day find their voice in Delhi, in Mumbai, in Kolkata, in Jaipur, or elsewhere, only time will tell. For now, we rest in the knowledge that art does not need to finish speaking in order to feel complete. After all, as Sāhir reminds us with his quiet wisdom, for the blink of an eye, every game feels beautiful:

 

“Ek pal ke jhapakne tak har khel suhana hai.”

...

 

References:

The first blog written after the first show

https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2025/09/har-ik-pal-ka-shayar-sahir-on-stage.html

The YouTube recording of the first show:

https://youtu.be/dhG4nq4WHwI