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who is lehry?
fortunately, the answer is not very simple.
Let's begin with something
simple.
lehry is
a performer
a theatre maker
a thinker
a muslim
an athiest
an indian
an actor
a light designer
a director
a playwright
a teacher
a survivor
...
an artist
lets try this
here are some letters that I wrote to some people/ places/ things/ phenomena as part of a workshop with Daniel Mariblanca. Perhaps, these have a window / a doorway / a path to understanding me?
Some names may be changed to protect their identities.
or
I am just looking for a quick concise, professional bio of Mohammed Lehry. This changes all the time. The most updated version is linked below.
Click here.
to my younger self
Dear Mohammed,
Hello! It is I, Lehry from your future. I know that today is your fourteenth birthday. I know you love to draw, and write poetry and you wish to read endlessly. I give you permission to do all of that. Go ahead and nourish yourself and your curiosities. Don’t wait for the proper paper and proper instruments to get started. Just do it. I stopped all those things because I wanted to be more focused on being a professional. But, I have forgotten all of that which I didn’t keep up. Oh, and BTW, I did not choose to become a doctor.
Addition: 7-12-2022
You are an old soul. I want you to be prepared for a long, lonely and happy life. You don’t know this yet, but you are going to fall in love, deeply and madly with humans that love you deeply and madly just as you love them. This will happen more often than you think. But, I want you to know and remember that your love is too big to be contained for just one person. Let your heart feel for others than just your partner with the same intensity and even more. Loving others with all your ferocity will only let you love yourself more.
It is only in the service of others that you can truly be happy. Chase this service. Take pride in it. Be self-less. It is the only way things will make sense. I often think about how I should have started helping others earlier. Here is your chance to start this journey and be more involved with the people around you. At many times, you will ask yourself how it is that you can help others, I have so little. The simple answer is that lend them your time. Listen to them. Listen deeply and ask them how you can help them. Don’t try to solve anything for anyone. Solve things for yourself and ask them if they need solving things for them. Remember: It is in the service of others that we can truly prosper.
And you might want to sit down for this, we become an actor. Yes, you probably don’t have any idea about this, but yes, we do and so preserve all that creativity, joy and your infinite imagination. You are I are going to be great for it one day. Don’t bother with all the things that you don’t like. I still don’t like them.
In constant remembrance of your wonderful self,
Lehry (aged twenty-five)
PS: Five years from now you will meet and fall in love with this wonderful person called XXXXXXX. You never tell her that and nothing ever happens because of this and the curiosity of what it could have been haunts you for many years after. You regret the time that has been lost. So tell her and all the others that you fall in love with about how you feel WHEN you feel it.
to the friend/ relative/ daadi and all the others that were afraid.
My dear afraid friend,
Why do you fear? Whom do you fear? Why do you fear so much that you deny yourself a life? I wonder so many a times, do you regret? Do you regret never once drowning the silence with loud music? Do you regret denying yourself a loving partner? Do you regret never touching a man outside of your family? Do you regret not giving yourself an extra hour of sleep? Do you regret never asking something for yourself? Do you feel a duty to an absent person?
Why did you do it? Why did you believe? Did you ever wonder how life could have been? Did you ever wonder if things could have been different if you hadn’t feared? I wonder it too. I understand it too. I am afraid too.
I am very afraid.
Perhaps of things that are different from what you are afraid of. But, afraid, nonetheless. I fear that I may never be what my family wishes me to be. I fear that I will never find love. I fear that I will never find love in the intensity and the care that I wish for. I fear that the sins of my past will catch up with me. I feat that I will forget and be forgotten. I fear that I will consume more than I give. I fear that the money will run out. I feat that the cold will get unbearable. I fear that I will pass – Unnoticed. Unloved and Irrelevant.
Perhaps, we aren’t so very different after all. I might not have been who you wanted me to be, but yet, I turned out just like you – Vulnerable, Unaware of the goof that we have done and punishable for all our sins.
Best regards,
Lehry (still afraid, but slightly more aware)
to theatre
Dear Theatre,
Thank you for having me. You are my ideal home. You’ve got lights to keep me warm, air conditioning for when it gets too hot and for when it gets too cold. People when I wish to meet them. Conversations and discussions which are relevant (and irrelevant sometimes). You are an extension of me. You purpose is to be used by others. In many ways, you echo the thoughts of people. A humongous echo chamber of human thought. You take something that everyone thinks, feels, does, accepts and you amplify it so that it may return from its once cosy home anew.
I wish to be you. I wish to be a theatre. I wish to be a membrane. A membrane that allows others to permeate its boundaries so that feelings of comfort, agitation, joy, sadness, anger and fear are allowed to be exchanged with the freest of currencies: breath. I aspire to let people in with the ease that you do. I aspire to let them come in, take a seat, live within me and experience the joys and sorrows of others.
Just like me, you are built up by others. You live in places decided by others. And yet, for those exact reasons, there is none other just like you. Thank you for holding the silences with just as much humbleness and grace as you do applause.
Forever in your debt,
Lehry
to my family
Dear Family of Mine,
Who are you? Well, very obviously it is you – mom, dad, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, the list goes on. But, are you my family? At times, yes, and at many other times, no. I ask not much of you.
I ask that I be met with confidence. I feel as though there has been a lot of doubt about me. Unsure and unclear. My acceptance into this family has always been doubtful. As though, I am present there only as a requirement. Yes, there are parts of me that sure, I feel are accepted, but there are part I feel most importantly about, is somehow not. It has always been doubted, shamed, mocked and talked down upon. Is that what a family does?
You counsel me, advise me, school me, and correct me and all things else under the guise of concern for my well-being. But it feels different. It feels like as though, you are concerned only about yourself. Of what other people will say about you. What the society around you will say about you. What the world outside of you will say about you. I know my interests are different from yours. But is it too terrible to offer me some kindness for being different? I am more like you than you can realise. I am like you, but I am different. Is that not okay? Must a family be completely the same? Is that what a family is?
I don’t point out your shortcomings and flaws. I don’t put them on public display for scrutiny. But, you seem okay with doing the same to me. A one sided punishment it seems to me. Is that what a family is? A roof, a home, a room, a bed, a table, a joint bank account, a name and an identity? That is all that’s left of this family for me. A past that is unchangeable and a future that is grim and hazy.
Thank you for the experience. It’s what I would have done if I were in your place as well. Maybe, my future circumstances will allow me to be different and still the same.
But, until then,
Lehry