CAST & CREDITS

Embedded Characters!
CAST & CREDITS

DIRECTOR - Pervaiz Alam

CAST - Badi Uzzaman, Rajesh Joshi, Anwarul Hasan, Salman Asif, Nivedita Sen Gupta, Agha Zakriya, Mohd. Sajid, Aasif Hanif & Seema Anand

Special appearence: Bhawani Shankar, Santosh Sinha, Rupa Jha, Shoumita Ghosh, Rakey & Unzula

Special Binaca broadcast for Zahoor ka Hotal by Ameen Sayani

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR - Suniti Singh
CHOREOGRAPHY - Seema Anand
MUSIC - Bhawani Shankar, Shahid Masroor, Santosh Sinha, (Late) Habib Painter Qawwal and others

SOUNDS RECORDED IN INDIA - Sajid Raza Khan
COSTUMES/PROPS FROM ALIGARH - Sajid & Neelofar Khan
FILMOGRAPHY - Sucharita Ghosh & Andy Stephenson

Watermans Team - Penn Travella, Salema, Suman Bhuchar and Daniela Paulucci

Coordinator - Amita Shankar
Consultant - Sudha Maheshwari
Publicity consultant - Asra Fareed

Actors of Indian and Pakistani origin in Britain come together to stage a play that touches upon a number of pertinent issues, dividing the Asian community in the UK. To be staged at Watermans Arts Centre, Brentford, Middlesex, Thursday 14th – Sunday 17th April 2005 at7.45 pm, ZAHOOR KA HOTAL is the third major production of Desi Canvas, since the organisation was launched seven years ago. A multi-layered play, Zahoor ka Hotal is both hugely funny and painfully sad with some of the most exhilarating hits from the 1960 & 70s such as O' merey sona re, O' Haseena zulfon wali, Inhi logoN ne and Boley re papeehara.

The story is about a British Muslim of Indian origin, Kabeer, who is in love with Kavita, a British Hindu. However, she’s also married to Rajesh who happens to be a Hindu fundamentalist!

This is the beginning of an intriguing story in Zahoor ka Hotal, a play set in central London which takes us to Aligarh, just 150 km away from India's capital, Delhi.

How? The answer lies some where at Zahoor's doorstep in the communally divided city of Aligarh.

Failed writers, out-of-work artists, pimps, eunuchs, activists and students converged at Zahoor's for hours of heated discussions on sex, politics, religion and music in the 1970s. But what Kabeer remembers best, now living in dark and dreary London, is listening to Binaca Geetmala on Zahoor's grand old radio. The show, hosted by the legendary broadcaster Ameen Sayani, opened the door to many debates, arguments and ideas that shaped Kabeer's way of looking at the world.

Even when Aligarh was engulfed by a raging conflict between Hindus and Muslims, Zahoor ka Hotal was an island, where the differences of everyday life could be put aside. Nostalgia can be idyllic but life has its own way of complicating matters.