«I think that my absurdist vein is quite different from that which existed in Europe », says 49-year-old Mohamd Salmawy, author ot twelve plays, two collection of short stories and a novel.

« I like to think of my plays as comedies —entertaining comedies. But the critics think otherwise. They think that if it is a comedy then it is very bitter comedy. What is, in a modernist context called the theatre of black comedy. It has become,

 » he explains « a characteristic feature of contempory drama : if you are laughing, you are laughing at something that is very bitter. « That rosy outlook to life which was the distinctive feature of dramas in the earlier period is no long applicable to our world. 

»Absurdity has been a prominent vein in this writing. It makes Salmawy an interestingly cynical author and a revolutionary of sorts

 In a 25 year stint with Egypt's main national newspaper
Al-Ahram Weekly, he has seen it all happen. From Nasser's revolution in the fifties to the present day acrimony in his country, where the fundamentalist Hamas have unleashed a reign of terror, attempting to undermine the pillars of democratic governance. Al-Ahram Weekly is one of the most popular newspapers of the Arab world. More than 122 years old, it has stood witness to both —the times of war and peace. Those who have been the helm of affairs at Al-Ahram play an important role in advising the government at times of a national crisis. At present the paper has two editions in Arabic and English, with a third in French (of which Salmawy is soon to be the editor-in-chief), scheduled in May. Earlier, he had been the editor-in-chief of the English edition. Salmawy's early education was completed in Cairo. After studying English literature at the Cairo University, he went on to acquire a diploma in Shakespearean literature and another in British Civilisation from Oxford. He also has an MA in Mass Communication from the US. For a while he taught English literature at the Cairo university before taking up journalism. His first book The Origins of British Socialism was more of an academic venture, the introduction to which was written by Dr. Boutros

 Boutros-Ghali who at that time headed the Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, where Salmawy himself worked for some time. In Egypt, where there is a grave problem of fundamentalism, Salmawy is perhaps one of the few authors who has not cowed down to any intimidation from the terrorists. in-jest, he says it is that Egyptian censor laws, which he finds more intimidating.

« I am the author of the only Egyptian play on religious terrorism. So how did the terrorists let me get away with it ?

 Well the answer is that the censors were very helpful. They banned the play !
 » « There is not one of my plays that didn't have any problems with th censors except for Salome which is the only extant Arabic treatment of the Biblical character of Salome. And the reason why I had no problems with it was that at the time it was performed, I was the under secretary of state for culture ! Later, however, when Egyptian television wanted to broadcast the play, they couldn't because the censors objected to it. Needless to say that by this ttime, I was no longer the under secretary of state for culture ». Just a few month back there was an attack on the life of the Prime Minister and last year there was a similar attempt to assassinate the minister of information. Salmawy, though concerned, does not consider the fundamentalist as a major threat to the nation. « Unlike the old civilisations of Latin America, the ancient Egyptian Civilisation is one of the very few existing civilisation that do not believe in human sacrifice. It is also the only old civilisation that didn't have any empire. The old Egyptians never sought to conquer other people and subdue them or bring them under their own rule.

For 5,000 years, Egypt lived within its own borders. No expansionism, no human sacrifice. And this is what makes the common Egyptian opposed to terrorism. Although, I must admit that in the beginning these terrorists seemed to get some kind sympathy from the people at large because of their courage and because of the people's dissatisfaction with the existing economic situation in the country. There are times when someone goes and attempts to kill an official, and people think : "I hope they kill them all". But with time and especially during the past year-and-a-half they are realising that it is assuming serious proportions and they no longer have compassion for this kind of activity ». But what if the people themselves want change, as happened in neighbouring Algeria, wher the fundamentalists were democratically elected ? How does one avert that kind of a situation ?

« Algeira is a different story, Iran is a different story. Algeria is a country for whom religion represents an assertion of identity —cultural, political and social identity and the alternative to that was the whole identity that was imposed on them by the french colonialism.

One way if shedding the old colonial French identity is to assert your religious identity. Egypte has had a culutural identity of its own even before its conversion to Islam. In fact, Islam became a part of Egypt's identity. Egypt is the seat of Azhar wich is the islamic Vatican if you may like to put it —but Azhar never ruled. Rulers would seek the blessings of Azhar but Azhar never ruled. So, in Egypt if there is a need to assert our cultural identity we don't have to go back to religion.

The same is the case in India. To look at India through religion alone and for an Indian to think that the only way to assert his identity is through religion, would in fact be to ignore that completeness of India. 

» Salmawy first came to India in the early seventies to interview the then Priem Minister, Indira Ghandi. The visit was followed by another in 1978 during which he had an interesting encounter with her and which later landed him into some trouble also :

« I called Mrs Ghandi and said I wanted to see her and she gave me an appointment. I was almost at her doorstep, when I saw her coming down the steps handcuffed. She looked at me and apologised : "I am sorry Mr Salmawy, it looks like I will not be able to keep my appointment !" I didn't find it funny at that time. Inspite of her calm and her sens of humour I was very disturbed. I went back and wrote a very fiery article on what was happenning to Mrs Ganhdi and about the public reaction that I saw for myself.

I saw people demonstrating on the streets and I saw shopkeepers pulling down their shutters il protest. That article gave me a lot of trouble at that time because it sort of tipped the balance too far against the existing gouvernment and in favour of Mrs Ghandi 

». Indeed when Sadat read the article, Salmawy faced flak : After the piece appeared Sadat himself called our editor-in-chief and expressed his anger over the over the article. He said : why is Salmawy fithing the cause of Mrs Gandi ? Doesn't he know that she refused to give us mixed spare parts during the war ? And of course Mrs Gandi couldn't give those spare parts because she was under contract with the Soviet Union. Also he was more in accord with the Morarji Desai government at the time as he was trying to dismantle Nasser's legacy in as mutch the same fashion as Desai was trying to dismantle whatever Mrs Gandhi had done. And so he found more in common with the Desai government than with Mrs Gandhi whom he regarded as a friend of his predecessor Nasser. Well, to sum it up, my editor asked me (and until this day I don't know whether it was his suggestion or whether it was something dictated by Sadat himself)— not to write for a while until Sadat was given a chance to forget my name ! And that took him about six months ! So I wasn't writing for six months. But I wasn't sorry about that article and if time goes back I would have written the same article because it's a very small tribute that I was paying to a great leader of the third word. » An ardent fan of the Nehru family, Salmawy finds reffuge in Nehru's Letters to a Daughter. « I still have a kind of penchant for the old authors like Rabindra Nath Tagore. He was able to incorporate in his writings of Nehru particulary in his Letters which is book I enjoy reading every now and then. I also relish reading Mahatma Ghandi ». In Two Down The Drain —a brilliant satire on the present day life in Egypt, a boy and a girl fall into a gutter while walking down one of the streets of Cairo.

(Egypt is known for its chronic sewer problem). The whole action of the play takes place in the gutter. A very important official comes down to open a new pipeline and his security discovers them with great suspicion. They are accused of plotting to blow up the area and are confined to the gutter till investigations are through. And even as Mona and Hassan (the two main protaganists) muse over their fate, the entire city above them is flooded due to sewers bursting in nearly every locality

 In the end, the chargers are endorsed and the two are sentenced to life. Here is an extract from the last Act of the play which sums up Salmawy as a man who is anxious to bring back some sanity to a world that is absurd in every form and character :

 Hassan : (looking desperate) : I can't believe this. It's just not possible. Things like that don't happen. I am not accepting this. That's it. Mona : It's all over. I knew it would end like this. Hassan : No, no. (In a fit of anger he starts hitting the wall with both hands and kicking it). No, no, no, no, no...

Mona : ...I wanted to get out as well; but now I am sure that were're much better off down here. We just have to let things be as wonderful as tthey have been since we met. We'lll get out one day...

Hassan : ...May be you're right, Mona. May be life down here really will be better than up there. They're all stay underground. It's the only solution. We'll stay here and rescue some little part of the country from the mess it's in... You never finished that Noah story. Mona : ...Long years passed whiile Noah built his ark. And when he finished it, he sat waiting for God's command. Then one day, water started pouring from the oven in Noah's house and nobody knew that this was the sign that Noah has been waiting for and warning them against. (Pause). Then the mighty flood came and covered the world; and drowned all the evil people, the tyrants and the greedy and the oppressors. And from his ark, two by two, male and female... Hassan ?

One really wonder if the deluge Salmawy is prophesising has not, actually, already overtaken us !