Sixty-year-old Nadeem is a playwright, director, journalist, human rights activist. Except by Pervez Musharraf, he has been jailed by each military dictator of Pakistan for his socio-political activism. With all his pent-up anger, he brings to India a play that has been banned by the government in Pakistan.

A humourous take on the physical and figurative implication of a burqa, the play questions the necessity of the veil in contemporary times. But what brought about this unique coinage — Burqavaganza? “The notion of hiding is an outrageous extravaganza,” Nadeem says.

Burqavaganza has frayed many a nerve in the Pakistani establishment when it was premiered in March 2007. Since it questions the Islamic practice of covering the female body, many sitting parliamentarians - burqa-clad - from the Maulana Fazlur Rehman-backed Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) asked the government to ban the play from being staged in Pakistan.

“They thought it was blasphemous to question the burqa. Through the play, we challenge patriarchal mindsets, provoke a rethink to break the chains of outdated values,” Nadeem adds. Along with condemning the burqa, the play also ridicules the masked existence people have. “During the Lal Masjid crisis last year, when the maulvi of the mosque, Maulana Abdul Aziz was caught fleeing in a burqa, I wanted to file case of plagiarism on him since this is a scene from our play,” he laughs.