Khoya Hua Aadmi: The mirror to society’s blatant hypocrisy

Brilliant acting, a thought-provoking script and an eye-catching, realistic set make Khoya Hua Aadmi a must-watch for all theatre lovers.

NAPA’s latest theatrical production reflects on a number of issues that plague our society through a middle-aged couple’s constant struggle to survive.

Karachi

Life is an intricate journey – interesting to discover yet complex in essence, and there is no denying the fact that everybody is fighting a constant battle with its ups and downs, troughs and crests. NAPA’s latest theatre production, Khoya Hua Aadmi, plays on these complexities and highlights a couple’s struggle in dealing with them. Directed by NAPA’s Khalid Ahmed Rizvi, the play serves as a mirror to society’s pretence and is a tribute to late Kamal Ahmed Rizvi, who wrote the play.

Khoya Hua Aadmi revolves around the story of a middle-class, married couple living in an apartment on the 16th floor of Clifton Heights and is too distressed by its surroundings. The play, which opens with the scene showing the sleep-deprived, confused husband, Danish (played by Fawad Khan) finding it hard to absorb the loss of his job; his livelihood, throws light on several social and societal issues that irritate, and often confront, people – be it as immediate as water crisis and load shedding, or deeper ones that affect one’s psychological fabric.

Losing his job makes Danish question everything around him, from the noise his next door neighbours make to the country’s growing unemployment rate. He eventually loses his mind and believes it all to be some kind of conspiracy against him. Danish’s wife Bano (played by Aimen Tariq) tries her best to support her husband in whatever ways she can and, in light of the situation, takes charge of earning a living for the two of them.

At this point, the play also touches upon gender discrimination by highlighting a husband’s uneasiness with her wife’s professional growth and the marital conflicts that tend to occur when roles reverse.

However, the real twist in the plot comes when Bano, too, loses her job. By this time, Danish has managed to take control of his deteriorating health and is returning back to his senses. Now, as Danish tries to make sense of things, Bano is the one going hysterical and this is when, as an audience, you realize how difficult it is to understand someone’s situation till you are in their shoes. As problems keep mounting, the couple is left with no other option but to turn towards crime. A couple, who ranted over growing security issues and the rise in crime rate while listening to news, was now headlining news channels as the one behind them.

From society’s hypocrisy that often becomes evident when one hits rock bottom to the fact that there is no one particular reason that pushes people over to the bad side, the play deals with various shades of reality and the changing dynamics of relationships. It toys with one’s perception of the world and encourages you to think about things differently. It not only gives many of us, who are too quick to judge, a lesson in life but also offers a reality check to the media and the authorities over the kind of tensions they are ensuing in people’s daily routines.

Hats off to the director for handling such an intense and serious script as this, so comically and forcing one to laugh even over their misery, albeit with guilt. With an amazing set-up, well-planned breaks, brilliant acting and excellent dialogue delivery, Khoya Hua Aadmi is a must-watch play. However, the two-hour long play could have been easily shortened to make it crisper and more impactful. As for performances, the male protagonist was effortless in his delivery and timing, while the wife seemed to struggle with her role, just at times.