Date: 27th Dec 2015
Venue: Kamani Auditorium, Mandi House

“Wo Lahore” – a Hindi/Punjabi play, is set in pre independent India and deals with the story of a big joint Hindu family and its inner turmoils with the struggle for independence in the background. The story revolves around Jamuna – who has three sons and a daughter and some Muslim neighbours who are also integrated in this family. Though it is a loving family, the brothers have different aspirations. On one hand is a son who is a revolutionary at heart and wants to break away from the norms of the society and on the other hand, another son who just wants to make decent money and live separately. The story of the family is similar to the state of the country in that era when various rulers of small Indian states were fighting amongst themselves without realizing the intrusion of foreign powers.

The director manages to recreate that era when Hindu Muslims lived in harmony with each other and would visit a neighbour’s house like their own but at the same time maintained their reservations with inter community marriages.

The play’s strength is its actors who are out and out pros. The acting skills of the woman who played Jamuna-the mother and Veerawali-the sister are especially praiseworthy. The script is mostly in Punjabi. Though Delhi’s Punjabi community loved it, some of the non Punjabi audience had a hard time understanding some parts of the play.

The famous TV/film actor Avtar Gill played the narrator and recited a few verses in Hindi / Punjabi / Urdu after every few scenes. He provided glamour to the production but underplayed his character well. He could be the major reason why Kamani Auditorium with its huge capacity was jam packed.

What didn’t work for us was the fact that “Wo Lahore” is actually an old Hindi Play – Jamuna repackaged with a new name and a celebrity actor. Also we couldn’t help noticing the similarities with another play “Jis Lahore nahi dekhya oh jamiya hi nahi”.

Overall “Wo Lahore” was a decent weekend watch