Baghdad Wedding

Recently, I saw a play called “Baghdad Wedding” by Hassan Abdulrazzak and liked it a LOT. The play is about three characters, Salim, Luma and Marwan. The play begins in a setting at Imperial College London where the three meet each other at a party. Hailing from a common place Baghdad , they become best buddies. Luma is a post-modern girl and holds values that are nowhere close to a conservative Baghdad girl. Marwan is the typical conservative guy who is at Imperial college to do this engineering. Salim is the most rebellious of the lot and spends his time writing novels with extremely controversial titles, that a Muslim would never dare to write. Fate brings all of them to Baghdad and the play shows how people change. The place, the environment, the situations, the context makes each of these characters , transform completely by the end of the play. Luma starts wearing hijab and becomes a dedicated doctor helping fellow Iraqis, Salim starts believing in Quran because of the strange turn of events before his wedding ceremony. Both Salim and Luma  decide to settle down in Iraq Marwan , the most conservative of the lot @ the beginning of the play, actually leaves Baghdad to the safety environs of UK.

The background to all the acts in the play is the war ravaged Iraq and what it does to the common man. Funerals become places where people expect good food/kebab and discuss about food instead of mourning for the deceased. Hospitals are flooded with patients all the time and doctors value only one skill, rapid improvisation. How quickly you can multi-task and react to situations is all that matters in hospitals. Most of the Iraqis live with a constant threat to their lives. What this does to them, What values they hold, What values they are quick to dismiss , What opinions they hold of foreign nationals , are some of the many aspects that are  touched upon, in this wonderful play.