MUMBAI, Oct. 12 -- Urdu writer Qurratulain Hyder's (1927-2007) novella 'Agle Janam Mohe Bitiyan Na Kijo' ('Don't have me reborn as a daughter in my next life') doesn't mince words. It's powerful, poetic and direct. The work, based on the life of two singer sisters, was published in 1963, and will be presented as a dramatic reading at the Cube in Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) today. The four-performer, 75-minute act directed by Rasika Agashe, is not your typical play. There are no sets, no traditional acting or background score. Four actors will read from the novel as characters and narrators. "I started such readings with theatre actors and groups almost eight years ago," says Agashe. "Actors weren't reading the classics, so I thought of staging them as dramatic readings, presenting novels in a more engaging format." The showing on a public stage, in Hindustani (A mix of Urdu and Hindi), is sprinkled with Sufi songs. In one of the episodes from the novel, a young singer meets the landlord's son. She pulls the book he is reading and starts singing the couplets in it. The boy asks her to sing louder and says, "I'll make you a shayira (poetess)." The prose then jumps to the girl becoming a radio singer. But Agashe introduces couplets at this juncture, making the moment come alive on the stage and characters more relatable. Even though they are women of 1960s India, Agashe and other women performers can still relate to the struggles and challenges of the novel's protagonists. The Padma Bhushan-awardee Hyder or Aini Appa (her pen name) was way ahead of her time. The novel also talks about how women performers resort to, and perhaps, are even compelled to marry successful businessmen after a point in their career, which happens even today. "It's a known fact that a woman performer's career is shorter than a man's," says Agashe. "An older and a married actress runs out of favour with the audience way before her male counterpart," she adds. Hyder was also known to push the boundaries of classical Urdu, which had earned her a lot of criticism back in the day. She was one of the most influential voices in modern Urdu literature. She was born in Aligarh to writer parents Sajjad Hyder Yildirim and Nazar Sajjad Hyder. Among her most prominent works is 'Aag Ka Darya', considered a masterpiece of the 20th-century. It spans from ancient India to post-Partition times, exploring identity, history, and the idea of belonging, weaving together themes of cultural continuity and dislocation. "What strikes me about her writing is her choice of such beautiful and eloquent words," says Anamika Tiwari, one of the four readers of the act. While she relates to the struggles of the women performers of the novel, she found it hard to comprehend how they could go back to where they started from, ended up with almost nothing, even after achieving great milestones in their career. "That for me, as an actress of today is hard to accept," she says. "But I get their struggles with patriarchy. I had my share of difficulties convincing my parents that acting can be a full-time profession too, and arguments over late-night rehearsals," she adds. Agashe believes that the performance will invoke empathy among the viewers, making them realise that women performers' lives are full of struggles. "And that I am hoping will lend itself to empathy for the world at large," she adds. Actor Gagan Singh Riar believes that this performance and Hyder's words will help the audience understand how the India of the '60s was. "Hyder brings alive that era with her beautiful writing," he says. "It will be like entering into a different world, especially for the younger audiences," he adds....