Delhi under eight emperors, a historical drama

An account of the rule of eight successive kings of Delhi during the time of famous sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya is presented through a new historical drama "Eight Kings".
The play is a solo act by Farhad Colabavala who enacts all the eight rulers of the Slave, Khilji and Tughlaq dynasties -- Ghyasuddin Balban, Qaikobad, Jalaludhin Khilji and Allaudin Khilji along with Malik Kafoor, Mubarak Shah, Khushrau Khan and Ghyasuddin Tuglaq.
Through a Sufi narrative, the drama is a blend of history and myths retold by a dervish to the legendary traveller Ibn Battuta who visited Delhi during the reign of Muhammed bin Tughlaq, whose initial months witnessed the death of Auliya.

Director Vikramjit Singh says it is an attempt to epitomise the volatile atmosphere of the capital city, which was then as is now, the centre of political developments, power tussles and intriguing machinations.
The enactment begins when famous traveler and writer from Morocco, Ibn Battuta, accidentally meets a wandering Kalandar (a saint who is at a very high level of spirituality) here during Mohammad Bin Tughlak's time and who tells him the story of the previous eight Sultans.
The Kalandar speaks about the fickleness of fate that is connected to external power and how the only eternal thing is love.

Inspired by an upcoming book, "Nine Nights and A Million Stars" by Dhritabrata Bhattacharjya Tato, the drama attempts to explore the historical capital, which has seen sufi saints and emperors and witnessed massacres and new cities being built and abandoned.
The stage has been depicted in a medieval sufi style, with props comprising a lit lamp and a green shawl seen in darghas. The kings are represented through eight different crowns and as the story progresses and each ruler dies, his crown gets thrown into a bin and a new one brought out.