Play depicting rise of fundamentalists wows Pak audiences

- Planet Bollywood Special Correspondant           Let us know what you think about this story

They believed the story was exaggerated and distorted and ruled that "no Muslim can ever conceive of killing religious leaders or bombing mosques".

Following the reading, Abbas had to be escorted out of the hall for his own safety and the story was never included in any of his collections.

With the story becoming so believable in the present day Pakistan, "Hotel Mohenjodaro", the play by leading theatre group Ajoka, was sadly not shocking.

The prophetic writing couldn't have been closer to the "ugly reality" of present day Pakistan, said its creators.

The play, adapted and directed by Shahid Nadeem, was premiered last month in Lahore and staged at the National Art Gallery auditorium here over the weekend.

Nadeem's hallmark wit and tongue-in-cheek presentation of religious zealots had the audience in splits, who also appreciated the sparse but uniquely conceived sets and the effective use of multimedia to propel the narrative.

Also appreciated were the songs by Nadeem -- including one with the lyrics "jeena haraam hai, marna halaal hai" as they were an apt summing up of the havoc wreaked in Pakistan in the name of jehad and Talibanisation.

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