It was a pleasant Saturday afternoon, when ham operators from across the country congregated at the Muffakham Jah College for a two-day annual radio convention hosted by Lamakaan. While they spoke at length about frequencies and antennas, we matched wavelengths with Elahe Hiptoola on the college’s lush lawns.
An established Bollywood producer and one of the founders of Hyderabad’s most popular cultural space, Lamakaan, Elahe chatted about how she and her team kept the space afloat during the lockdowns, her passion for the arts and striking a balance between reel and stage.
For Elahe, Lamakaan is a place where there are no filters. “It is an open space which is genuinely democratic. When I say that, we mean that we don’t put a filter on who is coming and what is happening, we are nowhere at Lamakaan. Very few people know that (Ashar) Farhan, Humera (Ahmed) and I are behind it; we curate the events. But that doesn’t mean that we are putting ourselves in front, our tastes, likes and dislikes out in the open. We have given space back to the society where people can get together, think and have conversations,” she said.
She recalls her childhood when she was lucky to have spaces like this where people genuinely thought they could change the world. “We had our ideas, politics and dreams. Now, there are no such spaces. Today, children are meeting up in spaces like Cafe Coffee Day, Barista and Starbucks, where they eat muffins listening to Bollywood songs. Spaces where you can sit down without any kind of pressure to order, dress a certain way or be seen have been taken away. But there’s no such pressure at Lamakaan — you can wear what you want, walk in at whatever time you want. It gives you the freedom to be what you want without being judged,” said Elahe.
Then came the pandemic, which did not spare Lamakaan either. The space dried up and events got cancelled. “The Lamakaan anniversary is very important and we curate it very dearly. It was supposed to go on until March 17, but two days earlier we decided that this would not be a responsible thing to do. We cannot get so many people into Lamakaan without masks during a pandemic. We called off two events. We asked our staff (14-15 people), who are from Odisha, to go back home. We bought them their tickets. We paid them a part of their salary from our own pocket. We looked after them throughout the pandemic.”
Lamakaan is one of the most loved addas in Hyderabad. Looking at its success, people had even approached Elahe to start something similar in Mumbai and Bengaluru. “We gave you a space in Banjara Hills — if people had a bungalow in the locality, they would either live in it or break it down to make space for a mall. But we gave that space for free, you are not charged to attend events or perform here. The space runs on a self-sustaining canteen which serves a meal under Rs 100. We don’t take corporate sponsorship or government aid either. We run the place by raising funds through donations. We put ourselves out there with a begging bowl, saying help us to keep our space open because that is what it is. When people ask me, what it takes to open a Lamakaan in Mumbai or Bengaluru, I say you need jigar (guts), you need to have the heart to give prime property in a prime location for free to society to use it.”
When we asked her how she strikes a balance between her responsibilities at Lamakaan and as an established film producer, she had a humble answer. “It is giving me too much credit. I don’t handle the day-to-day operations of Lamakaan, it is Humera who does it. We are an executive, we delegate duties. As I travel a lot, we manage the place by planning well in advance. We see how the roadmap is going to look like five years from now. But, it is all Farhan and Humera who take care of things on a daily basis,” she said.
Finally, the feisty and spirited Elahe believes in what she does and has a great time doing it. “If you are not enjoying what you are doing, no one will. If I don’t enjoy myself and I am not having a good time doing a certain thing, I don’t do it. I am having a great time running Lamakaan and love what I do in production. There is no such thing as ‘managing’ if you love what you do,” she said in conclusion.