An editor asks Deven, a teacher who loves Urdu poetry, to interview poet Nur Shahjehanabadi, an aging whale of a man. Deven goes to Bhopal from Mirpur to meet Nur, of whom he is in awe. He finds him living with feuding wives, visited by sycophants who drink his whisky and eat his food. Deven wants to record Nur for posterity and seeks funds to buy an aged tape recorder, to bribe Safiya, the elder wife, to get Nur into a room at a brothel for a week for the recording, and to feed Nur’s pals who show up. Nur’s beautiful second wife, Imtiaz, wants to be taken seriously as a poetess. Dever dismisses her and ignores his own wife and child much as Nur does. In the end, what is preserved?
Release Date: 3 June 1994Runtime: 126 min
Stars:
- Alakh Nandan
- Maza Bi
- Nayeem Hafizka
- Neena Gupta
- Om Puri
- Parikshat Sahni
- Prayag Raj
- Riju Bajaj
- Sagar Arya
- Shabana Azmi
- Shashi Kapoor
- Sushma Seth
- Tinnu Anand
- Veerendra Saxena
- Yusuf Khurram
Director: Ismail Merchant
