‘Sons of Babur’ presents an engrossing, informative and aesthetically pleasing account of the ‘folk’ of Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb as seen from distant Rangoon by the last and deposed Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar . The play seamlessly blends the present with the past, an introspection of the Mughal era and a unique reading of Indian history. Sons of Babur was temporarily shelved due to various logistical issues.
The play will be staged on 26 May 2023 at 6 pm in the main auditorium of the India International Centre. This work was written on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of 1857 and went into a lot of research. I consulted almost all relevant historical sources and went into all the different points of view about Mughal history.
Finally, the play has now been revived, and the unanimous choice for the lead role was Sayeed Alam of Pierrot’s Troupe, who has filled Tom Sahib’s shoes admirably. As part of the revival, the play had its first show last winter on a cold winter evening in New Delhi; The audience was spellbound and rose to give a standing ovation.
About Babur’s sons
The play is specifically about Bahadur Shah Zafar and 1857. This is not the view of a historian, but of a sad king and poet analyzing the Mughal past. Nayak is a student of Bengali history who deeply understands Bangla nationalism. In a hallucinatory state, he meets Zafar and sees Mughal history and the events of 1857 from Zafar’s perspective. Zafar has no over-emotional attachment to his ancestors and analyzes them objectively, sometimes even ruthlessly. Even the events of 1857, the ripples of which engulfed him and his state, have been clinically dissected by him. At the end of the play the protagonist calls Zafar the ‘last Mughal emperor’. Showing foresight about the coming days of democracy, Zafar corrected himself by calling himself ‘India’s first democratically elected emperor’.
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