AI meets Ayodhya: Young drama group stages Pak's 1st Ramayana
If Ram could send one tweet from the forest, what would he say? If Raavan could do a TED talk, what would it be titled? A week before the premiere of '
Ramayana
' at the Arts Council of Pakistan in Karachi on July 11, 30-year-old finance grad-turned-director Yogeshwar Karera shot off Karan Johar-style rapid-fire questions at his cast for a social media promo.
This was no ordinary stage production — the Hindu epic had never been performed in Pakistan before. The cast was entirely Muslim, except for the director, and the play used AI to enhance storytelling. Despite recent Indo-Pak tensions, it sold around 1,000 tickets and generated buzz on both sides of the border.
'We weren't expecting such a response,' says Karera, surprised by the congratulatory messages pouring in for Mauj Collective, the theatre group he co-founded a year ago.
He says the near-war between the two countries did not impact the play. 'The sponsors and venues had no reservations at all about staging it. Only the media has asked us these questions. In fact, it didn't even cross our minds that this might be seen as sensitive or controversial,' says Raana Kazmi, co-founder of Mauj Collective with a day job in human resources.
'This is a story of universal values, a story of ours to tell'
People from all backgrounds came, regardless of their religion.
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Families with kids, students, the elderly, everyone. A friend told me about how a parent explained each scene to their child,' says Kazmi, who played the role of Sita. Samhan Ghazi brought fierce intensity to the role of Raavan. Karera, a Sindhi who moved to Karachi in his teens, says his fascination for the epic tale of good triumphing over evil started young.
'I was five years old when I first watched Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan on Doordarshan.
The story grabbed me from the start,' says Karera, who decided to pursue theatre full time in the middle of his finance and accounting degree.
After getting a diploma at the National Academy of Performing Arts in Pakistan, Karera and two friends, Kazmi and Sana Toaha, founded Mauj Collective. The year-old theatre troupe uses tech-savvy stagecraft, social media flair and scripts that speak to a younger generation.
Although some have interpreted Mauj's 'Ramayana' as a statement on religious unity, the group maintains their goal wasn't about sending a message. 'None of us ever felt like we were telling a story outside the world we inhabit. I've grown up with this story of the Ramayana. I may not belong to the community religiously, but this is a story of our subcontinent. It never felt like the story wasn't ours to tell. The values in it are universal,' says Ashmal Lalwany, who played Ram in the production.
Some Sanskrit and Hindi words were adapted to terms more familiar to a Karachi audience. For instance, 'prakriti' became 'kudrat'. Sometimes, this would lead to amusing confusion. 'In one scene, Hanuman is supposed to give me a ring.
Now, I know the word 'anguthi' means 'ring,' and that's it. But one day during rehearsal, Jibran Khan (who plays Hanuman) says, 'Aap is mundrika ko dekhein'. I was just standing there like, 'Where am I supposed to look? What is a mundrika?' laughs Kazmi.
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