"TEESRI DASTAK"
(The Third Knock)

---

March - 1991 (Lahore)


Written by: Shahid Nadeem
Directed by: Madeeha Gauhar

The play was originally written in 1971 by Shahid Nadeem and first performance in 1991. it's a story of slum dwellers facing eviction by landlord who wants to demolish the old dilapidated building and build a hotel plaza instead. The residents of the dwelling consider various options evade eviction but eventually choose to kill the landlord. Once the collective murder has taken place, they make themselves believe that are free now and masters of their own destiny. However to their utter shock and horror the landlord knocks again to serve them the eviction notice. They think that the landlord was not killed properly and has to be killed again so that the victim is really dead. They celebrate their liberation and make plans for running the dwelling. The police arrives and rounds them up for murder. Only women and old people are left behind. The landlord knocks for the third time and those left behind in the dwellings rise to strangle him for the third time.

---

Review: The poetic naturalism of “the Third Knock” bore clear traces of both. Before a full house of about 80 people at the Highways performance Space, Nadeem read a part in the drama, about a group of poor urban tenants on the day their landlord comes to evict them to build a hotel. They kill the landlord, but he returns. They must kill him repeatedly. Each time, they relive the fantasies of owning the building themselves. Each time, it is as if some terrible, fatalistic machinery is at work. (LOS ANGELES TIMES: September 19, 2001.)