In Hind 1957, theatre director Feroz Abbas Khan relocates the family conflict of August Wilson’s Fences to post-Independence, post-Partition India. He describes the adaptation as retaining the original’s “essence and spirit” while reframing its setting, characters and language through the experience of Muslims who stayed in India and trusted in a constitutional democracy.
In an interview with Zara Flavia Dmello for Scroll.in, published December 30, 2024, Khan discusses prejudice across generations, patriarchy within a family, and the role of poetry and shayari in making Wilson’s story speak in an Indian context.
Why adapt Fences for the Indian stage?
Wilson’s play is rooted in the African-American experience. Khan says he was drawn to its exploration of prejudice passed between generations and to the clash between a father’s despondency and his sons’ aspirations. In his reading, those family tensions can resonate beyond the American setting without making the histories interchangeable.
Khan’s adaptation, Hind 1957, shifts the story to post-Independence, post-Partition India. As he frames it, its characters are Muslims who rejected the two-nation theory, remained in India and trusted a constitutional democracy that promised equal treatment and inclusion. The play depicts their encounters with suspicion, discrimination and challenges to their loyalty. This is Khan’s account of the adaptation’s perspective, not a claim that one play can stand as a complete history of either community.
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“Classics don’t age, they only become more relevant with time,” Khan says in the interview, explaining why he wanted to tell the story now.
What changes—and what remains—in Hind 1957?
Khan says he sought to keep the source play’s emotional and dramatic core while making its text and circumstances relatable to an Indian audience. “In essence and spirit, it’s the same as the original play but it had to be Indianised to make it relatable and the text reflects this transition,” he says.
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| Element | Fences | Hind 1957, as described by Khan |
|---|---|---|
| Setting and social frame | Rooted in the African-American experience | Post-Independence, post-Partition India, with the story framed around Muslims who stayed in India |
| Central character’s identity | Troy is a sportsperson | Tabrez is a poet, a change Khan says felt more relevant to India of that period |
| Language and poetic form | Wilson’s original playtext | An Indianised text shaped by poetry and shayari; the interview identifies Abhishek Shukla as the poet whose work is used |
| Story structure | The source play | Khan says the adaptation retains its “essence and spirit”; the interview does not provide a scene-by-scene account of changes |
The comparison is therefore clearest at the level of context and character function. The interview does not describe every plot change, so it cannot establish a full scene-by-scene map between the two plays.
How poetry and shayari shape the adaptation
In Khan’s account, poetry is not an ornamental layer added to Wilson’s story. It links past and present and gives the Indian version a distinct voice. Making Tabrez a poet rather than a sportsperson, as Troy is in Fences, gave the production a way to use metaphors that Khan felt would carry emotional force in its setting.
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Khan credits Abhishek Shukla’s poetry with elevating the play. The interview presents shayari as part of how the adaptation locates its family drama within Khan’s imagined Indian world.
A patriarch who wounds and provides
Khan describes the central father as domineering: he can belittle family members and move through erratic moods. Yet he is also the family’s provider and capable of compassion. That tension keeps the patriarch from being presented as only a villain or only a source of authority.
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Khan says actor Sachin Khedekar developed the role through intensive rehearsal, working on tone, body language and shifting moods. He connects the character’s conduct and its consequences to patriarchy, saying, “Patriarchy is almost universal in its behaviour and consequences.” That is Khan’s characterization, rather than an independently measured finding.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What kind of production did Khan envision?
Khan describes Hind 1957 as an intense, socially concerned family drama built around complex characters and detailed realism. He places its scale between two ends of his own theatrical work: the grand, cinematic Mughal-e-Azam: The Musical and the intimate minimalism of Tumhari Amrita and Letters of Suresh.
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The interview also identifies Khan’s earlier work with adaptation, mentioning Salesman Ramlal alongside those productions. His comments on the economics of Hindi theatre are his assessment, not a sector-wide statistic: “Hindi theatre barely survives economically, and performances are staged briefly so there is no incentive to write original plays that live up to high standards.”
Where and when was Hind 1957 staged?
Dmello’s December 30, 2024 interview listed performances at The Studio Theatre, Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Mumbai, from January 2–5, 2025. Those dates are historical; the interview does not establish whether the production has a current or future run.
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