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"Qubool hai! Qubool hai! Qubool hai! Three hundred times qubool hai (I accept, 300 times!),” exulted the actress playing Ruttie Petit (1900-1929), daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, second baronet, when enacting her wedding to barrister-politician Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Her husband later went on to demand a separate homeland for Muslims and was the first governor general of Pakistan. Ruttie took the name Maryam Jinnah after the nikah (marriage).
The 120-minute staging of a Gujarati play Bombay Flower, directed by Manoj Shah brings out the highs and lows of Ruttie’s life, her love for, and even obsession with Jinnah, her later dependence on drink and opium, her solitary wanderings in Europe and her loneliness, attributed to her husband’s later indifference to her and his preoccupation with politics. Given the sobriquet of "Bombay Flower,” reportedly by politician Sarojini Naidu, Ruttie’s exuberance comes forth in the first half of the play, while in the second half, when shunned by her parents for marrying the politician against their wishes, she becomes an embittered woman who finds solace in theosophy, the idea of a free India and dabbling in social work.
The Bombay premier of the show at the Experimental Theatre of the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) on March 26, 2023 saw a full house, comprising largely of Gujaratis, with a smattering of elderly Parsis.
Shah told Parsiana after the performance that the script for the show, which included English and a little Hindi, was drawn from books on Ruttie’s life, among them Mr and Mrs Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India by Sheela Reddy (see "The turbulent marriage,” Books, Parsiana, April 7, 2018) and Ruttie Jinnah: Ek alag drashtikon (a different outlook) by Rajendra Mohan Bhatnagar. [In addition there was another recent book on her life: Ruttie Jinnah by Saad Khan with Sara Khan ("Revealing the real Ruttie,” Books, Parsiana, September 7-20, 2021).]
We queried Shah about the reference in Bombay Flower to an uthamna for Ruttie at Dadysett Agiary, performed after her elopement with Jinnah. "Some fiction is added to fact… We have reference of (the) uthamna appear(ing) in newspapers… Not the mention of the location… That we added.” While most publicly available photos of Ruttie show her draped in a Parsi-style sari, the director chose in the first half of the show to have the actress wearing it in the non-Parsi way. It was incongruous to see Lady Dinbai in a white Hakoba-type sari and chappals that may have led purists to go "tsk tsk!”
"It took four years of working to premier this show at NCPA,” said Shah, who has directed some 90 plays. Recalling his production of Master Phoolmani in 1999, he stated that play was about the Bhangwadi tradition of Gujarati theater. Bhangwadi is an area in Kalbadevi, the home of Gujarati theater. "During this process I discovered that Parsis were the key, pioneers to start Gujarati theater… Later I learnt that Parsis were even pioneers in Urdu theater… There are books written on that glorious era… The reason behind Bombay Flower being dedicated to Parsi theater is to recall these contributions so our younger generation respects and learns from this culture,” he stated.

Asked about the relevance of the Petit-Jinnah love story today, Shah stated, "It’s very much relevant even today… teenagers are trying to be independent and leaving their families, values, tradition, religion, culture.”
The cast comprised Bhamini Oza Gandhi (as Ruttie, pictured), Vishal Shah (Jinnah), Naman Sheth (Kanji Dwarkadas, a friend of the Jinnahs), Rishabh Kamdar (Sir Dinshaw) and Purvi Desai (Lady Dinbai and Fatima Jinnah, the politician’s sister).
Ideas Unlimited, the production company founded by Manoj has staged Hu Chandrakant Bakshi (I, Chandrakant Bakshi), based on the writer of the same name, Mohan No Masalo (Mohan’s spices) based on Mohandas Gandhi, Karl Marx In Kalbadevi based on the German philosopher, and Dr Anandibai Joshi: Like, Comment, Share based on India’s first female doctor.
Having done these biographical plays, "we were looking at doing a one-woman play and Ruttie was interesting,” Manoj told The Indian Express on March 25, adding, "When we started working on it, something was amiss, so we brought in Jinnah… Still unconvinced, we had to add a few more characters, including Ruttie’s parents, Jinnah’s sister and Kanji Dwarkadas.” Bombay Flower has many monolog delivered by Ruttie, including a touching "phone call” with a telephone operator to locate Jinnah who was missing on her birthday.
The play will next be performed in Surat, Bulsar and elsewhere in Gujarat, Manoj said.