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Interview

Umesh Shukla – Theatre Interview

by Deepa Gahlot June 19, 2023

written by Deepa Gahlot

After attaining success in films and television, writer, director, actor and producer Umesh Shukla keeps returning to the stage. “I don’t think I will ever be able to give up theatre,” he says. Starting up the theatre in college, where he participated in inter-collegiate drama competitions—the best training ground for stage aspirants–and learnt from the best like the late Mahendra Joshi, Paresh Pawal and Manoj Shah.

He comes from a family of priests, who conduct poojas in people’s homes, and says that till he graduated from college, he used to conduct poojas too. “I grew up in Bhuleshwar,” he says, referring to a densely populated area in South Mumbai, “in the chawl culture. There was no connection at all with theatre, and I have no formal training—I learnt on the job, by trial and error.”

After directing one of the biggest hits in Gujarati theatre—Kanji Viruddh Kanji—and being involved with many other successful plays as producer, writer or director, at present, he has two productions running successfully in Mumbai—the Hindi version of Saumya Joshi’s Gujarati hit Welcome Zindagi and Madhuri Dixit.

At a time when Hindi theatre is going through a tough time, why did you decide to do a Hindi play?

Not just Hindi, all theatre is doing badly after the pandemic. Everything really changed, audiences want to watch OTT and things are very difficult. Being from theatre backgrounds, Saumya and I believed that if we do something good, people will definitely come back; people are starting to tire of OTT, and good content will draw them back to the theatre. Welcome Zindagi opened to a terrific response, and Madhuri Dixit is the number one play now. It is a very different play and has no stars. It’s the content that is working.

You have a long-standing professional partnership with Saumya Joshi, how did that come about?

We do all our work together! When I did Kanji Viruddh Kanji, I heard Saumya had done a one-act play Dost, Ain Chokas Nagar Vastu Hatu. I wondered, one-act play ka kya itna garmi, and one weekend I went to see it. Saumya is younger than me, but I thought I should make him my guru. I am a big fan, and I told him whatever you are going to do next, let me know. The he came to see i and we saw that our sensibilities matched. We believed, theatre ho to aisa ho, alag ho, to maza aaye. We gelled very well and have been working together very well too. Then he was doing Welcome Zindagi in Gujarati in Ahmedabad and had completed rehearsals. Bharat Thakkar, who was with me in theatre, along with Bhavesh Mandalia and Hemal Thakkar, we all went to see it in Ahmedabad. There was no audience, just the four of us, watching a rehearsal, and we were blown away. We just had to get the play to Mumbai. It was challenging, because all the actors were new, and not stars. How would people accept it? But it was so good, the writing, direction, performances. It was set in a lower middle class home, the men wore pyjama kurtas and the woman, wore a maxi—you know, the kind that women wear at home. Gujarati theatre at the time was full of chakachaundh and the questions used to be, where did you get the saris from, where did you get the suits stitched. There was some good work happening in parallel theatre, but mainstream, theatre was larger than life, not realistic. And Welcome Zindagi was a realistic play. But it became such a big hit that all records were broken. When Paresh Rawal saw it, he said that it was like Saumya had slapped us all awake, such a lesson he has given us. It was a rage!

So, we decided to work together going forward. I told Saumya, whatever he wanted to do, to come to me with a budget, and even if I didn’t have the money, I would find it. We did 102 Not Out, Aaj Jaane Ki Zidd Na Karo and other productions.

Kanji Viruddh Kanji has been your biggest hit?

As a director, yes. There were other hits like Kamal Patel Versus Dhamaal Patel, Haila Ramila Pachhi Aavi, Tame Mane Gamo Chho, Natu I Love You. But Kanji was different, after a long time there was a play that was liked by audiences and critics. It was done as Kishan Versus Kanhaiya in Hindi by Paresh Rawal, in Marathi, Kannada, Tamil. After the show, people would stand outside, not to meet the actors, but to discuss the play. They would be talking about whether to cancel a pooja, whether they should go to Siddhi Vinayak Temple, whether they should fast… that’s when we realized the impact of the play. A 75-year-old couple wanted to tough the director’s feet, saying that if I had done this play 25 years back, their lives would have turned out very differently. It made me question my own work, what I had done before, what I would do next. When I saw Welcome Zindagi, I felt we know nothing!

You don’t act any longer?

I started theatre doing backstage, then did roles. I remember doing a play in English—Psycho, in which I played mother and son and that was challenging for me, because I am studied in Gujarati medium. I didn’t think I was that good an actor. I was always inclined towards writing and direction. I also found acting—particularly in films—boring.

A few big theatre spectacles have done well recently, do you thing that’s the way to get audiences back?

I have a couple of scripts like that. I have been exploring ideas with Saumya, to do something at that level.

After successfully making the transition to films and making hits, what keeps you returning to theatre?

Theatre is where my craft keeps getting sharpened. Getting that instant reaction makes a difference. I feel any subject can first be explored in theatre, because I get all kinds of crowd. It is difficult for me to give up theatre. You know, for about three years, I was unable to do theatre. Every Sunday, I had such a craving, that I would go to see a play, and then I would hold on to the curtain and pray, bring me back here. When I don’t have time to direct, I write. Like I adapted Madhuri Dixit, and changed it to suit the Gujarati sensibility, of course, with the original Marathi writer’s (Abhijeet Guru) permission.

Gujarati theatre producers often say that they are losing audiences, because young people no longer watch their plays.

Saumya and I have been attempting to get back the youth. The problem is that are no Gujarati medium schools any more. In the family, people speak in English or Hindi. They don’t speak of read Gujarati, don’t get Gujarati newspapers at home. That’s why the young audience is disconnected. It is a very shocking thing for us. During the lockdown, I tried to teach Gujarati to people, I distributed books. Not just because they should come to see my plays, but because there is so much great literature; if they read, they will be aware of it. So, yes it is a concern, and we are working towards solving it.

Two of your plays,

Kanji Viruddh Kanji and 102 Not Out have been turned into successful films..how did you visualize them for the screen?

Both the mediums are equally challenging. In a play, you know you have to culminate it in 8-9 scenes, there is no fixed grammar to it, but we have to demarcate certain things. Films have a different potential. In films, there is a term, suspension of disbelief, in theatre, the audience is the fourth wall, cinema is 360 degrees. Both are equally challenging, both are equally exciting. In Kanji, there were eight sequences in the film Oh My God, there were 118, so there’s a vast difference. Some people believe that if you go from stage to film, then you have to open it up. But it is not all about opening up walls. It depends on the requirement of the subject. In 102 Not Out, the character wants to stay within four walls, he does not want to come out, and that was the challenge. The claustrophobic environment that the person wants to live in, how to open that up, how to expand the canvas? So cinema has its own language, you have to work with the content. In Oh My God I had the liberty to take it to different locations. OMG had a universal appeal, if you question the existence of God, when every home, every car, every wallet has a religious symbol, you question their belief.

Will Welcome Zindagi and Madhuri Dixit also be turned to film?

Definitely. Welcome Zindagi will be very different and very interesting. We are planning something.

(This piece first appeared in mumbaitheatreguide.com)

June 19, 2023 0 comments

Mallika Shah – Theatre Interview

by Deepa Gahlot May 20, 2023

written by Deepa Gahlot

After training in the US and Mumbai, Mallika Shah has been busy working in the theatre in various capacities—actor, educator, communicator– and has written and directed her first play I Killed My Mother/It Wasn’t My Fault, that tells the story of a young woman, going through one terrible day, when nothing seems to go right for her.

Mallika had gone to the US to study oceanography when fate took her down another path. “I was very young then, and SUNY Geneseo was a small university in a small town, where there were no people of colour, which is very rare. I wanted to get out of the bubble of a few South Asian friends and explore. I also found the aptitude in oceanography lacking, from what I had thought. So, I switched to English Literature major and did theatre on the side.”

She had acted in a school play as a child, but had not been exposed much to theatre before, so, she says, she did not realise how different things were in Mumbai till she returned. “Over there,” she says, “it was all very streamlined even though it was a very small theatre department. Initially, I wanted to be an actor, and I moved back to India, thinking it would be easier to do it here. In the US, there was not much representation of Asians, the way you see it now in films and TV. New York intimidated me, I didn’t know how I would survive there. So I came back, worked for an NGO for a while, and then I joined Drama School Mumbai (DSM). Over there, it was being told what to do—it was a very American style of doing theatre, classics and proscenium, not very experimental. DSM was so physical, so new, so devised—I had no idea of all these things before. I only vaguely know of using the body to get to emotions, and using emotions to get to the body, so actually doing that all day long for a year was something else. It was good to learn what theatre is all about, what makes theatre.

“I had a very westernized upbringing, but was also a very sheltered child,” she says, explaining the origin of the angst-ridden protagonist of her play. “When I moved out of my family’s umbrella, I became more politically aware, which is what the play is about. Her angst is not baseless, it stems from something, even though she is privileged. Which is why I had a scene with an auto driver, to confront someone who does not have what she has. But, just the knowledge that someone else has it worse, does not mean your pain is less; in fact sometimes, it can exaercerbate, you can become numb in a sense. If I have nothing to be upset about, is my sadness, my despair not valid at all? Who is there to listen?”

The unusual and catchy title of the play came up when Mallika thought about what the woman says most in the play, which was “It wasn’t my fault.” The ‘I killed my mother’ half of it was to express the severing of the relationship between mother and daughter, “even if it means for a moment in time. The play is not entirely from a personal space, though. There are things that happened, certain thought processes are personal, but not everything that transpires is real. Events have been fabricated and twisted to make the narrative of the day happen. The fights with many family members, get put into the role of the mother. It’s just that intra-generational gap that seems to come up so often these days, some people tend to manage it better. My parents are very willing to grow with me and connect with what I connect with, but that is not true for everyone.”

After she had worked for a while with various groups, Kathasiyah, the Bangalore-based performing arts company, took up her play for production. She also had a grant from DSM. “I had the idea sitting for a year and a half, but I would not have known how to bring it to the stage without that grant. I asked Sunayana Premchander ftom Kathasiyah to mentor me and she came on board as producer. Meghana AT was staged manager, movement director…and we share a great creative camaraderie. Then we auditioned actors and technicians. It was an amazing group of people who are coming in from very different paths. They are all young, about the same age as me, they knew I was doing this for the first time and the faith they had in me was so reassuring. It was all open and flexible, more a devised process than me directing them all.”

Mallika has ideas buzzing in her mind for her next play, but she wants to keep this one working for a long time “giving it the longevity it should have.” She is not shutting down acting or writing opportunities in the OTT space, but, she says, “Writing and direction are much more fulfilling and use a lot more of my skills than acting. I like to take something from thought to final product. I believe in theatre. I want to help and support and to be a part of it, rather than just create. Which is why I am working with schools and with Bhasha Theatre, which is partnering with groups to help them perform their shows. But of course, we desperately need more venues.”

(This piece first appeared in mumbaitheatreguide.com)

May 20, 2023 0 comments

Dramaah Interview

Anahita Uberoi – Theatre Interview

by Deepa Gahlot April 23, 2023

written by Deepa Gahlot

Daughter of theatre veterans Vijaya and Farrokh Mehta, Anahita Uberoi has grown up living and breathing theatre. After training in New York and working on Broadway for a while, she returned to Mumbai, going on to act in several English plays and direct a few. Her new play for Aadyam, As Bees In Honey Drown (an adaptation of Douglas Carter Beane’s satirical comedy about the pursuit of fame) marks her return to direction after a short gap.

Before the pandemic hit, she had directed Gaa Re Maa with Ishitta Arun as producer. She had also been consulting with ticketing platform Bookmyshow.com, where she was exposed to a different view of the theatre business. “I had a very interesting and educative time,” she says, “I could observe how the system works, what audiences are buying, how marketing helps, how social media helps. I found it quite fascinating. So when things opened up, I believed nothing should be done for the first year – it was too risky for the producer.”

When Aadyam invited applications for 2023, Anahita chose to direct. “Without our realising it, the pandemic took away three years,” she says, “Aadyam is a nice initiative, stress free and very supportive. Devika Shahani is producing it. I had read BEES maybe 25 years ago and it had been a big success. I had loved it and was divided between wanting to act in it and direct it. I couldn’t quite decide and then years went by. I read it again in 2000, and realized that because of Google it was very easy to find out about someone. Then social media came about, and it is now so easy to put out what you want to about yourself, and who’s checking? It got me thinking that this play could be revisited, it could be updated and recontextualised. The story of a young novelist and a dynamic woman charmed me.”

Aditya Rawal and Shikha Talsania play the leads, with four other actors doing multiple parts. “It has been a joy working with them, they are a complete delight and the process has been one of great excitement. It is very tough to cast these days, and I have been fortunate to get these six. They have all come from different backgrounds of work, and never worked together, so it made for a nice, happy mix. They are all talented and all crazy, but they are also earnest, disciplined, enthusiastic, hard-working and quick. They have fun, but their attention is also full on. More importantly, they all honour dates. If your heart is in theatre, then whatever it takes, you always pull through. What keeps theatre going here is love.”

Why is it that with so much original writing in English, theatre makers still turn to adaptations of western plays? “I have been consistently working with original writing and I am very happy doing Indian plays,” she replies, “but this time I had just two weeks, and of all the plays I had looked at, it just so happened that this story shouted at me. I am hoping my next play will be Indian writing, I am just waiting for the funding to come through.”

After spending so many years in the theatre, her output has not been too prolific to which she says, “Now that my children have grown up, I am happiest when I am in theatre, but I am not one of those people who has to do a play every single year. I enjoyed every moment of it, but I also got very absorbed in bringing up my children. I loved it and those years will not come back. I did what I wanted to do, but I didn’t chase stuff. Now I am charged up again. I think I did more acting than directing, but I don’t like to do both together. I enjoy acting so much that I want someone else to tell me what to do on stage, otherwise I might do a half-assed job.”

With exposure to both Marathi and English theatre, how did she tilt more towards the latter? “I grew up backstage in Marathi theatre, because I travelled everywhere with my mother, like her little tail. My influences were much more from Marathi theatre than English. I actually wanted to do more Marathi theatre, but by the time I was 18, after school and college, my mother said I could go wherever I wanted and feel free to work with whoever I pleased. She also said that I had studied in a South Mumbai school, so my Marathi wouldn’t cut it and I would be thrown off the stage. She said, find who you are…and that stayed with me. I think I am a bit of a hodge-podge and I don’t belong to anything. Which is why I am happy to use other languages in my plays. I am happy to cast actors from different language theatres. That sound, that quality they bring from whichever theatre they belong to is so enriching. I am a big mixture, so what I do has also been very mixed culturally. That’s who I am.”

Even in the clique-ish world Mumbai theatre, Anahita has worked with a wide variety of theatre groups. “I had set up my own production company, but I realized I was not cut out for producing. I like working with other people. I would like to call myself a freelancer. Whichever producer or writer I work with, the pool of actors I choose is very varied. And that is fun. Why just theatre, influences come from art, music, architecture. When I take a cab and the driver is playing music, I never ask them to turn it off. Through the music they listen to, I enter their world. All entertainment, whether you like it or not, is valid. There is a multiple world of creators and audiences.”

(This piece first appeared in mumbaitheatreguide.com)

April 23, 2023 0 comments

Dramaah Interview

Ulka Mayur – Theatre Interview

by Deepa Gahlot April 18, 2022

written by Deepa Gahlot

Ulka Mayur describes herself as an Indian theatre artiste, storyteller, writer, actor, director and folklorist. She is also a dancer, scholar and founder of the production company, Story Circus, with her husband, writer Mayur Puri. She has been creating unusual content for children and adults and much of her work is inspired by folklore and mythology, which remain an abiding passion with her.

Her latest play, Ballad Of Desires, weaves mythology, poetry and philosophy to tell the stories of women like Ahalya, Renuka, Ruchi, who were punished for desire, using the medium of dance. “I have taken the poetry of Maya Angelou, Pablo Naruda, Khalil Gibran, concepts from the Rig Veda and Gita, sifted through abstract concepts about the enigma of desire, the debate on desire,” she says, “there are two types of parallel narrative that go on—dance pieces that convey the philosophy of desire, and the stories of women from Indian mythology. I have also included a tribal character from an alternative version of the Mahabharat.

Ballad Of Desires

“There are also the apsaras, who are meant to be objects of desire, but Rambha was raped and Menaka was punished for falling in love with the man she was supposed to entice. I have touched upon all these aspects and I have also tried to infuse some humour and satire. The language is not Sanskitised Hindi, because that would alienate the audience. I have experimented with language, using Urdu, a bit of English—like we speak.

“I have also broken convention with dance,” she continues, “My training is in Kathak, but I have used other dance forms– elements of paso doble, salsa, butoh, hip hop. I have a strong visual sense and Ballad Of Desires is inspired by the art of Raja Ravi Verma. I created it like a series of paintings, so I had to make the actors stop moving about too much and be still. The music composed by Bharat-Hitarth is original, except for a tribal song and a chaupai.”

Her earlier, acclaimed one-hander, Cast Off All Shame, was about the female Bhakti poets of India. “I have always been a humanitarian,” she says, “I come from a place of love and I try to subvert all hostilities be it religion, caste or gender. I have also taught my kids the basic qualities and values of empathy and understanding of humanity. Reading history and mythology, I try to understand women in folklore and indigenous traditions. We are fortunate that we belong to a generation that has awakened and we are aware of how things should be.”

She recalls a sold-out show of Cast Off All Shame, which she discovered was for an all-male audience of military men. “Not a single woman in a show that was totally meant for women. In that play I made a conscious decision to break the fourth wall, the character should be able to peer into the soul of the audience. I didn’t know where to look in an audience of men. But after the show, the response I got was wonderful. Some of them said that at some point they had gone through the same emotions and I realized that emotions are universal.

“A man may not understand what a woman experiences, but he will understand vulnerability, because we can all be vulnerable. Some said they thought they were evolved, but when they saw the show they realized that they had discriminated against women in subtle ways. I am not aggressive, but I believe that everyone should get respect and dignity and I practice this in my life and in my writing. So it comes across in my work, even the shows that I do for children.”

Married to a writer and creative person, Mayur Puri, whom she met in college in Ahmedabad, she says, “We don’t invade each other’s space. We have so many interesting things to share, but we also have to grow separately. We inspire each other all the time. He read the first draft of Cast Off All Shame,, and asked me to simplify it; he said everyone in the audience is not a PhD. I am a researcher and my PhD training is such that when I read something my mind automatically goes beyond the text, but I learnt not to make things erudite.”

Ulka says that it was because of her children that she discovered she had it in her to be a storyteller. “I had learnt classical dance with Kumudini Lakhia and Uma Dogra, but I wanted to evolve, develop my own language, my own creativity. I am a later bloomer. Initially I kept busy with academic pursuits, I taught in a college for 10 years. When my sons were born, I thought I should remain at home for them. Their childhood would not return, work could always happen.

“Working with kids was a different ball game altogether. I like storytelling, I wanted to perform. I started writing for children because my kids could accompany me, I didn’t have to leave them at home—so it was for a totally selfish reason but I found there was demand for it. Performing for children keeps you on your toes. I grew as a writer, I learnt to improvise a lot as a performer.

“I have so many stories within me that I want to share. If Cast Off All Shame, was about emotions and Ballad Of Desires is about sensuousness, I Cloud was about the mind. Because the characters in the play are not real, they are representations of his thoughts. It was inspired by 1984 (by George Orwell), and we said a lot of things politically that we didn’t expect would happen and they did. So we were advised not to do any more shows.”

(This piece first appeared in mumbaitheatreguide.com)

April 18, 2022 0 comments

Dramaah Interview

Avneesh Mishra – Theatre Interview

by Deepa Gahlot January 11, 2022

written by Deepa Gahlot

Avneesh Mishra brought his group, Rangshila, back on stage after the long lockdown break, with Iss Desh Ka Yaaro Kya Kehna, a satire written by Lakshmikant Vaishnav.

“This pandemic period presented a crisis for theatre people,” he says. “In theatre it’s important to meet face-to-face. That stopped and the whole world was on Zoom. There was also the precarious financial situation. I experienced something strangely dramatic– there is a room in my home that is used like a storage space for all the play material, properties, costumes and all. It was raining heavily and the room was filled with water, soaking everything. I was sitting the midst of all wreckage and reminiscing about which play an object belonged to, when it was done, what happened then–my whole journey. I was thinking what to do, I could not take the isolation any more. I spoke to all my group members, and they were all despairing. Some wanted to return to their hometowns. I told them, go back, but please make provisions for a net connection. Whatever happens, we must not stop doing theatre, and we must not get depressed. We started reading our plays and doing workshops on Zoom. But it was tough. Then, when the lockdown was lifted for a while, we staged our plays Refund and Geet Gaan Aur Gatha.

After studying theatre at the Bhartendu Natya Academy in Lucknow followed by some months of training at the FTII, Pune, Avneesh came to Mumbai to be an actor. He met a lot of groups, but nothing interesting came up. “After doing so much theatre in Lucknow, I did not want to do bit parts. I ended up doing a mythological serial, and we were shooting at Umargaon. We used to be in costume and wig, waiting for hours. I had a good role, but I saw that stars from the stage, trained actors, who had done great work in theatre, were a part of crowd scenes. They were being ill-treated and abused by the production people. I was shocked and appalled at this sight. The script was that’s great either. I realized I just could not do this! I confided in Rajendra Gupta and told him, I was not enjoying this work. He asked me what I wanted to do. I said, I want to do theatre. He said, then don’t do this, do what you really want to.

“I was so motivated by his words, that I started doing street plays for small companies, then with bigger companies—corporate workshops, induction programmes, short motivational films. My work was appreciated. This is how I make a living, not from theatre shows.

“I realized, if you do a film, the resources and the people come aboard easily, for the exposure if nothing else. You have to make an effort to gather people for a play because doing theatre and surviving on just shows is very difficult. Everybody in theatre wants to eventually do films. They come from small towns and hope to make it in films, their parents have hopes pinned on them. Then, there is one Prithvi Theatre, how many productions can they fit into 365 days? You may perform anywhere, but till you perform at Prithvi, you don’t get that stamp of approval.

“My plays are usually musicals with a cast of at least 20-25, to get so many people; I’d say that is my strength and perhaps, also my weakness.”

In 2008, he set up his group Rangshila and did a comedy called Refund, about a man who wants his school to refund his fees, because his education did not help him in any way. “Luckily, I came in at a time when the groups were fluid, not rigid, closed organizations. People were friendly, willing to share resources and work in one another’s plays. I was new, still actors like Gopal Dutt and Akarsh Khurana were willing to act in my production.

The Great Raja Master Drama Company

“When I did Badal Sircar’s Teesvin Shatabdi, a powerful anti-war play, Tom Alter and Sudhir Pandey acted in it. Then I did a satire, The Great Raja Master Drama Company, in pure nautanki style, about a tailor who wants to do theatre. My plays were invited to all the major festivals, but unfortunately, due to shortage of dates at theatres, I wasn’t able to do too many shows. Uski takleef hai, but I will keep doing the work that inspires me.”

He is particularly proud of Geet Gaan Aur Gatha, which was a history of theatre music, and the musical, The Sun Set In The East, “For the latter, I did a lot of research on Hiralal Sen, a theatre and film maker in Kolkata of the 19^th century. Dadasaheb Phalke is considered the father of Indian cinema but Hiralal Sen was also a pioneer; he made Alibaba And Forty Thieves, the first full length feature film, he is credited with India’s first advertising films and the first political film. He and Amarendra Dutta combined theatre and film at that time. It is a fascinating story and I worked hard on it.”

Mishra has acted in plays like Sandeep Shikhar’s Open Cast and Abhishek Majumdar’s #Supernova, but never acts in his own plays. “I don’t think I will be able to do justice to the play if I produce, direct and act. My mind will be on a dozen things.”

He is thinking of two musicals to do in the future and also reviving his earlier plays. “I am still at it, let’s see how successful I am. Till I am able to find good subjects, I will keep doing plays. Theatre hi karna hai, yeh sach hai.”

(This piece first appeared in mumbaitheatreguide.com)

January 11, 2022 0 comments

Dramaah Interview

Purva Naresh – Theatre Interview

by Deepa Gahlot January 30, 2021

written by Deepa Gahlot

Purva Naresh’s plays are running in theatres in Mumbai, so here’s revisiting an interview with her:

An Indian playwright is given a brief by an Australian director to write a play that must have a caged bird, a girl on a train, a dog, 500-year-old woman and a reference to female trafficking in India, and Purva Naresh comes up a play titled Jatinga that gets rave reviews for being “a highly provocative, intelligent and engrossing theatrical experience, which challenges romantic ideas of India.”

Purva Naresh, writer, director, dancer, pakhawaj player, and occasional actor, is getting international recognition and opportunities to work on exciting projects across continents.

Apart from Jatinga, she was commissioned to adapt Amana Fontanella-Khan’s book Pink Sari Revolution into a play for Leicester’s Curve Theatre, directed by Subha Das, with local Asian actors. Earlier, her play Ok Tata Bye Bye had a reading in London. Naresh wears her achievements lightly, but she is today, one of the most accomplished playwright-directors on the scene in India, with plays performed at Writers’ Bloc, Aadyam and her own group Aarambh that kicked off in 2010, with the outstanding musical, Aaj Rang Hai, which is still running. She has also been producing plays under the Aarambh banner, not written or directed by her.

“In fact,” she says, “how will I ever find time to write when the plays I have produced—Bandish, Okay Tata Bye Bye, Ladies Sangeet, Umrao are all being performed in some city or the other.”

For the last few years, Naresh worked at a high-pressure corporate job (which she quit eventually) and did big productions and film writing assignments “So,” she explains, “I can promote newer, younger work. I also often wondered if Aarambh will do just my plays or there is a larger vision to it.”

All her plays have very strong female characters, and both the plays she worked on abroad are about women’s issues. Pink Sari Revolution is about Sampat Pal and her now famous Gulabi Gang that fights for women’s causes in the north Indian hinterland. It follows the case of Sheelu, a Dalit girl, raped by an upper caste man, and then arrested and thrown into prison; it flows like a thriller but does not dilute the caste and political concerns.

Naresh has written another play based on the same subject but in a fictionalized format; she put it aside because Pink Sari Revolution was planning an India tour. Disappointingly for Naresh, after attending the rehearsals for a month she could not extend her visa to watch the show. “The other regret is that I could not work with Indian actors,” she says. “The Asian actors from the UK were trained and very good, but over there, India means Bollywood or Kumars At No 42. How can they even be expected in a few weeks of rehearsal to understand what being a Dalit means.”

She also found the style of working abroad very different from how things are in Indian theatre. “They are very process-driven. They have unions, so there is not one second of overtime. The movement director or sound directors comes and works with the actor and goes away; there is an accent trainer, who is not even Indian but an Irish expert in accent. So they don’t have people spoon feeding you; there are professional actors and other professionals who come together, grapple with the basics, get it all sorted and then the actor and the director work with the text. There is a lot of workshopping and talking around the issue, and there’s a dramaturge involved. I found it all a little regimented and time-table driven for my taste… I was impressed but I am not a fan of that method. But the good thing is that they do previews and change things according to feedback.”

She does admit, however, that a commissioned work demands a kind of surrender. “Inevitably there are points of departure between writer’s vision and the director’s. I would love to do the plays I write my way. But being part of another process and another journey is enriching too.”

(This is an edited version of the piece that appeared in The Hindu on April 2018)

January 30, 2021 0 comments

Dramaah Interview

Preeta Mathur – Theatre Interview

by Deepa Gahlot October 19, 2020

written by Deepa Gahlot

To commemorate the 44th anniversary on Ank, revisiting an interview with Preeta Mathur:

For a long time, Preeta Mathur worked with Dinesh Thakur, first her mentor and then husband, an eminent theatre director and actor, who ran his group Ank for more than forty years. After he passed away after a prolonged illness in 2012, there were doubts about Ank’s survival. But Preeta expertly picked up the reins and has proved to be an able administrator and leader. “There was no doubt, even for a day, about keeping Ank going. At first I thought let’s run it for five years and see; that period got over and we are in our next five years and going strong.”

While she was acting in all Ank’s plays, she also held a corporate job, doing the long and tiring Mumbai commute to and from her place of work, still keeping up the energy to rehearse every evening and find the time to perform Ank’s many popular productions in the city and elsewhere. After years of that grind, she quit her job quite recently, to devote time to theatre full time. “I believed I would have time to write, but I have just been so busy. I also thought I would miss my office, because in a corporate set-up you have a certain position and status. I was surprised that I haven’t missed it at all. When I found some time, we simply took on more shows and started touring a lot more. And when you are travelling, you are everything from peon upwards!”

She directed her first play for the Dastak Festival in Singapore last year–a short piece called Ek Din Bank Mein, a comedy about the encounter between an overwrought woman and a hapless bank manager. “Dastak organizes a festival of ten short plays, and invites one group from outside, so I decided to direct a play, which was the first time I put my name out there. When Dineshji was ill, and we had to keep our plays alive, we had to replace actors regularly and I had to do that kind of uncredited direction all the time. Dineshji had a format, but people are different, so you are always thinking of how to get the best out of them. This time, I adapted, designed and directed a play by myself. I always had the experience, this was a step forward.”

She says she didn’t realise just how hilarious the play was till a group of Singaporean drama students came to watch a technical rehearsal and started laughing. “When we were working on it, the people in the group didn’t even crack a smile, so I could not tell; a director’s attention is on so many things. I wondered how Dineshji could always tell what would work and what would not. He was sure that if we did things exactly as he told us to, it would work out well. He was acting and could not see himself, still he was confident… I think I will get there slowly. After all the stress and nervousness I go through with every play, somewhere at the back of my mind, I know that if I am confident, things will be fine.”

Over the years, she has worked out her own style of direction. “Dineshji had a format that was good for the actors; it was certainly good for me. He used to—and I do too—work on the speech before we go on the floor. We get the speech right after many, many readings. He would ask the actors not to start learning the lines till we started on the movement. I give the actors more leeway and let them take that call. He was very strict and disciplined; all I insist on is continuous work till the right note is achieved. You can’t take long breaks in between rehearsals and hope to remember all the details. I am a little more relaxed, because I think I can also learn something from the new people who join Ank. I give my inputs, but I like it if they give suggestions, so that they feel more responsible and involved. I believe in teamwork and delegating responsibility; after all I also want to enjoy what I do. I take on all the stress of a show up to a point; then everyone has to do what they are supposed to and there will be no more hand-holding. Ideally, two hour before a show starts, I want to go into my own space.”

A lot of the older members of Ank are still with the group, and more actors are inducted through the six-month Ank Disha workshop programme. “For the first three months, we work on speech and literature; the next three months, they are cast in a production.”

After Thakur’s demise, she also decided to work with other directors—seniors like Devendra Raj Ankur and Ramgopal Bajaj, as well as younger ones like Atul Mathur and Veena Bakshi. “When I took over Ank, I had three objectives: One was that we cannot compromise on quality and lower the standards Dineshji had maintained; I didn’t want anyone to say that when Dineshji was alive, things were so different. The second was for Ank to grow as a group, and the third was for every member of Ank to grow. I encouraged people to write and direct. Dineshji had a different kind of charisma to keep people together, but the way I see it, if actors don’t see any growth for themselves, they are not going to stick around with the team. I want to work towards creating some software, maybe shooting some of our plays and doing something different each time.”

She also used some of her mother’s bequest to create a workspace which she calls Ank Studio. “So we have our own place to rehearse; otherwise in Mumbai, it is difficult and very expensive to find the right space. Like always, we make it a point to rehearse every evening. During the daytime, the actors can do their jobs or go on shoots.”

The last couple of years, Ank’s plays have travelled to places like Jaipur, Bikaner, Dehradun, Agra, Jabalpur and Alwar. She ties up with local groups to hold Dinesh Thakur Memorial Theatre Festivals in various places, raising money through grants and sponsorships, while the local partners do the management and marketing. “I realized that the trick is to go on working. Make plans and work, money will happen. What is important is that we are building new, audiences in these places, which was unheard of, say, ten years ago. We have to keep the momentum going, good people come along and join up. We can help one another with our areas of expertise.”

(This is a slightly modified version of the piece that appeared in The Hindu Friday Review on December 21, 2018)

October 19, 2020 0 comments

Dramaah Interview

Pratik Gandhi – Theatre Interview

by Deepa Gahlot October 10, 2020

written by Deepa Gahlot

While Pratik Gandhi is gathering praise for his performance as Harshad Mehta in the web series Scam 1992, revisiting an interview with him about his theatre work:

More often than not, an actor who has gathered a fan following from films, attracts audiences to his plays. “With me, I think it has been the other way round,” says Pratik Gandhi, star of many acclaimed Gujarati films, stage actor and director. “Whenever I am out promoting one of my films, radio stations and newspapers first ask about my plays, because I am better known for theatre.”

Of the many plays he has acted in, his monologues, directed by Manoj Shah, Hun Chandrakant Bakshi, Mohan’s Masala (also in Gujarati and Hindi) have taken him to several places in India and abroad, and established his reputation as an actor of immense talent.

“Mohan No Masalo is a play very dear to me,” he says. “I had this idea about Gandhi in my mind—everybody knows the Mahatma, but how many know what went into making him great? Everybody is interested in success, but nobody cares about the process behind it. I find it very exciting, because that’s where you get the ingredients of anything in life. I discussed this with Manojbhai and he said let’s explore it. He did the research, the writer (Ishan Doshi) put it together, we did it in three languages and went all over with it. I explored new territories like the Leh Ladakh Siachen Glacier base camp where we performed for the army; at naval bases in Chennai and Mumbai, at the Sabarmati Jail for the inmates.”

Pratik had performed a short monologue in a production of Saat Teri Ekvees (Seven Times Three Is Twenty-one), and found the format suited him. “The monologue is an interesting space for an actor,” he explains, “I have to explore myself to the core in a minimalistic setting, where all eyes are on me. So there’s no cheating, just pure performance. There were a lot of things that worked for me; in my early days of struggle, I used to compere shows for quick money, where I had to capture the audience’s attention without a script. This experience helped me a lot on stage; I can sense when I am losing an audience, and how to get them back in tune with the character’s intensity and the text. Acting solo enhanced my skills, honed my craft and helped me grow.”

However, for a young man from Surat, reaching this position was a mix of struggle, serendipity, fighting the odds and taking tough decisions. After years of exposure to theatre in school, he trained as an engineer and came to Mumbai, which, he believed was the only place that would allow him to indulge what he calls his “multiple passion disorder” for plays, films and engineering and management.

Surviving in Mumbai on just an income from theatre is well nigh impossible, so he took up a well-paid job with a large company, which immediately ruled out commercial Gujarati plays, that demanded daily shows and travel. “Besides, in the family dramas that were—and are– popular, there was not much for me to do. I was searching for something that could keep me connected with theatre. Luckily, Manoj Shah does plays that explore new subjects and works under no pressure to perform every day or give an average number of shows to the producer. When we worked on Hun Chandrakant Bakshi (about a famous Gujarati writer), he was kind enough to adjust rehearsal timings with my work schedule. We rehearsed very early in the morning before I went to work, and late in the evening when I returned. On the very long commute to and fro, I learnt the lines, so I didn’t waste anybody else’s time.”

When Pratik did his first two films—Bey Yaar (Two Friends) and Wrong Side Raju—which were trend-setters in Gujarati cinema, he took leave from office to shoot. This hectic way of working eventually made him realise that he was losing out on opportunities. “I had to turn down films and plays because I had a job, and I could not take up better job offers that required me to relocate, because I did not want to lose the link with theatre. It was a huge decision for me to quit my job. I had just taken a loan on a flat, and had EMIs to pay, so it was a weird thing to do, but I went with my gut.”

His well wishers thought he was ruining his life by giving up a lucrative job. “I could have also come home from work, watched TV and slept, instead of rushing for rehearsals and shows. The biggest compromise was, of course, lack of sleep and time with family, and I had to decide on my priorities’ There was a period when I was homeless and living out of my car, because we left our rented flat and the company apartment didn’t materialise. Later, my father and my wife (actress Bhamini Oza Gandhi) suffered serious ailments. Now I think the word struggle is negative, I look at it as adding to my experience. Everybody’s journey is different—I had to stick around and deal with problems; there was no other way to create these experiences that are unique to me and will stay with me forever.”

Had he not met Manoj Shah, his theatre career might have been very different. “We have a karmic connection. He is willing to explore new ideas and I am able to do plays in which I am not jut delivering lines, but constantly feeling the resonance of an audience and giving it back. Every time I do the same play for a different audience, Iearn something new. It’s not something I can explain in words, it’s just what I experience. Like when I performed Mohan’s Masala at the naval base, everybody came in uniform and sat in pin drop silence. I know at which points the audience usually responds and this rattled me. Afterwards, there was loud applause and a standing ovation for ten minutes, and I was told that the audience had been instructed to sit quietly so as not to disturb the actor! I wish I had known earlier. When we did the play for prison inmates, their attention spans were even shorter than normal. But at the end, one of them came to me and wept. And I thought to myself, if I can speak to even one person, theatre is worth my while.

“I have made it a point that after every film, I do a new play or at least shows of a play immediately. I strongly believe that theatre is like an akhada (wrestling arena) for an actor. This is where I sharpen my skills, theatre is what keeps me going, and also keeps me grounded. Then, doing films is helping me get a younger audience into Gujarati theatre. The stage is a constant with me, I don’t recall a day or time when I decided to be an actor, it was almost second nature for me.”

Directing Womanologues (a series of monologues with women) was a “natural progression” for the actor; he intends to direct a play by a new writer very soon, and act in the next Manoj Shah production. He has also been cast opposite his wife in a yet untitled film. “I have been telling Manojbhai that now we should up the game, give the audiences something extravagant. The play may be simple, but the presentation must not be, only then will people take it seriously. If we keep giving them even diamonds for free, they will start questioning it.”

And finally, he wants to do something for Gujarati experimental theatre. “We have no place to perform regularly. We need equal, parallel opportunities. It’s time we fight for Gujarati theatre.”

(This piece first appeared in The Hindu on February 7, 2020)

October 10, 2020 0 comments

Dramaah Interview

Kumud Mishra – Theatre Interview

by Deepa Gahlot August 28, 2020

written by Deepa Gahlot

As Kumud Mishra starrer Ramsingh Charlie starts streaming, revisiting an interview done in the past with the actor, talking about his work on stage.

Kumud Mishra is currently the finest and most versatile actor on the city’s stage—appearing in plays like Shakkar Ke Paanch Daane, Peele Scooterwala Aadmi, Cotton 56 Polyester 84, Bali Aur Shambhu, Turel, Ilhaam, Aisa Kehte Hain, Flirt in your Dreams, The Owl and the Pussycat, Dhumrapaan.

Kumud studied at the National School of Drama, did theatre in Bhopal before moving to Mumbai to work in television. However, his association with writer-director Manav Kaul resulted in a rich haul of theatrical work.

“My father is an armyman and I studied at the military school in Belgaum. It so happened that there was a lot of theatre activity in the school, competitions between the various ‘houses’ and performances at the annual day. It was a great environment for talent to flourish. So when I was leaving school I was asked whether I wanted to be in the army and I said, ‘Nahin theatre karna hai’. Now when I look back, I sometimes think my parents would have been happier if I had gone
into the army. Then, in Bhopal I did a lot of plays with a lot of directors—in fact I broke the rule of one actor being affiliated with one group, because I worked with everybody.”

About the NSD an his other batchmates he says, “Of the known ones—Ashutosh Rana, Mukesh Tiwari, Yashpal Sharma, Shrivardhan Trivedi who is the bearded guy on the TV show Sansani. I think, in life you get what you want, I got what I wanted from the NSD. I learned a lot, I also fought and questioned everything. Then Dubeyji (Satyadev Dubey) came to the NSD, I didn’t take panga with him, because I wanted to work with him. What I am today, I owe a lot to him. Now I realize that as a student, even if you don’t agree with something, it Is still an experience and you have to be a part of that process. Actors start getting into a comfort zone very soon—whether it’s the mind, body or heart—and they resist whoever tries to draw them out of it.

“After 14 years I can be objective about the NSD years. There is scope for improvement, but still it gives you a lot of I it is up to you to imbibe it. In reality your training starts after you pass out. Because one journey ends there, but a lot
of people don’t realize that and continue to live in the past and theatre lives in the present. I joined the NSD Repertory and quit after ten days. It was like going
from one institution to another. I would have got a salary and a comfortable milieu, but I didn’t want that. Meanwhile Dubeyji asked me to come to Bombay to audition for Shyam Benegal’s The Making of the Mahatma. I borrowed money from a friend and came here. I don’t think I have returned it yet. I stayed at the PMGP colony and though I didn’t get the role I decided to stay.

“The PMGP colony is a place full of strugglers, and there is a romance about it. I had come to stay with my NSD friend Sanjay Jha who is now a filmmaker. Turned out he had gone to his village, but others saw me standing on the road and took me in. Then I started doing three television serials for Plus Channel, but the fact is TV did not excite me much, except for the money. Unfortunately I am not the kind who goes out and meets people, so everybody got the impression that I am not interested in TV. But I do want to do a serial or two so that I can continue to do theatre.

“In Bombay the theatre scene is very exciting—there are all kinds of plays happening from commercial to middle of the road to experimental and there is space for everybody. Here an actor can do just acting, in Delhi I might have become a director or started conducting workshops. Delhi people come here and dismiss Bombay theatre and feel they did better work. They are living in the past—at one time even I wanted to do Rashomon because I had acted in an excellent production, but theatre is not memory, it is what your mind and body demands NOW.”

In one of his plays, Turel, he played a woman, and he recalls his he approached this part. “It was ambitious and we didn’t have enough time to rehearse. At that time I was also busy learning 50-70 pages of Dubeyji’s play in English, so I am not sure if worked very well. But I had always wanted to play a woman on stage and explore a new experience. I almost did play a female character in Arre Mayavi Sarovar. But then I got cast as the king and missed the chance. There is an incident I remember, I was playing the Brihannala (which was Arjun in female garb) in a play
called Panch Ratra. And jut before going on stage, my wig was misplaced. I was irritated and panicky and just in time it was found and I felt I reached a level on stage that I hadn’t managed before. There is still so much about ourselves we don’t know, so much to explore.

Today, both Kumud and Manav Kaul have successful careers in cinema, but they had a very successful working partnership on the stage. “I used to do theatre in Bhopal, and Manav started work after me, and he knew of me. When I came to Mumbai, and started working in TV. My house had become like an adda. Four or five of us started working with Satyadev Dubey. Then gradually the others went away and Manav was left. He used to write really good poetry. I enjoyed his poems, and then I heard one of them and told him it was a performance piece. It has so
much drama. He said, If he turned it into a play, I would have to act in it. I agreed and that’s how Shakkar Ke Paanch Daane came about. And then we worked together on a lot of plays. What is exciting for an actor working with Manav is that he is always coming up with something new, and the condition is that what has been done before will not be repeated. That gives an actor no chance to get bored. His guideline is, “Yeh nahin karenge.” And that is a challenge for me. He has also evolved as a director with each play, because he approached each new one without any baggage of his past work. The yardstick again was not to repeat anything. So for me as an actor, I never know what to expect.

“I will give you an example of his methods. For instance, while doing Ilhaam, he told me not to use my hands. It is a very difficult thing to do. Some actors cannot act without their hands. Somehow, memory is connected to the hands, and the actor can forget his lines if he can’t use his hands. I do it because I don’t mind experiencing failure. We are friends, but the minute he comes up with something, the actor-director tension starts. Sometimes I don’t want to act, but in the end I acknowledge that the process is not important, the director is most important. An actor should not go with baggage to every play, so it is not difficult for me, even if I work with an inept director. Or someone like Dubey who would say “Aise hi bolo.” Some actors would have a problem with that. But I don’t question him, I surrender completely. I have to find a way in every situation, or I would end up working only with Manav.

“Actors are a badmaash lot. They have their own logic. To me, experience is very dangerous for an actor. I will give you an example. When Sunil Shanbag called me for Cyclewala, I had not done any theatre for over a year. He offered me a very small role of a bandit. Another actor had the bigger role. I did ask myself why I was doing it. My ego was hurt because I believed I was meant for lead roles. But then I asked myself if I was afraid of failure, of having my co-actors say that I couldn’t even do a small role properly. And I have never enjoyed a play as much. When I got the first laughter from the audience, I was elated—as if I had won a match. There was an exquisite pleasure in starting from zero. An actor should not carry any baggage, otherwise, like so many film stars, he can become a clone of himself. It is important not to repeat yourself. And it is important not to keep drawing on experience and memory. When I do Shakkar now, it is different from when I did it earlier. The character is the same, but if I play a young man with the memory of
how I was when I was young, it will ring false. I can play the same character even when I am 60, but I cannot play it with a memory of youth, because my perception of youth will be different.

Does he think the audience perceives all these minute details? “I don’t think so. They react simply on whether something works or not. The audience can’t be blamed for not understanding. If they don’t like what you are doing, accept that there is a problem. If they don’t like it, that does not mean it is bad, but you should be aware if what you have done. You must have the ability to judge yourself, then there will be no place for misunderstanding.”

(The still is from the play Dhumrapaan)

August 28, 2020 0 comments

Dramaah Interview

Rasika Agashe – Theatre Interview

by Deepa Gahlot March 9, 2020

written by Deepa Gahlot

As her group Being Association celebrates its seventh anniversary, rewinding to an interview with Rasika Agashe:

Rasika Agashe has done, and is doing, her share of commercial theatre, but she believes that plays should have some socio-political relevance. “I am terrified of the day my daughter grows up and asks me, when all this (referring to social injustice) was going, what were you doing about it? I should be able to give her some answer.” Her fiery production Museum…of Species in Danger, comprising a dozen monologues about women’s issue could be the answer to what she did when the Nirbhaya rape case rocked the nation.

“There is not much socio-political writing in Hindi,” she says, “talking about history, or the current situation. How are writers responding to it? Are there even five plays about the Emergency? Hindi theatre does not move beyond man-woman relationship… it is cut off from major events. If there have been plays written, they have not reached us. As you know, we do not have a tradition of documentation in this country.”

Agashe, and the group Being Association she founded in 2013, with her husband, actor and fellow National School of Drama alumnus, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, have been caught in the hurly burly of organising the Sanhita Manch Theatre Festival, that follows a competition for Hindi playwrights. It goes without saying that the plays are not just empty words, or form without substance.

Zeeshan Ayub

“I wanted to do a new play and I could not find any scripts. I don’t like the idea of commissioned plays; I would just get someone to write what’s in my mind, and it would be two minds working on a project. So the idea of organising a playwriting competition came about. We took it for granted that we will be able to find at least three play among the entries. Then we connect the plays by writers from different places with directors from different cities and hold a festival in Mumbai and elsewhere. There is another funny reason—don’t laugh—when I talk to senior directors, they always have personal anecdotes to share about playwrights they worked with. I thought, when I get to their age, who will I tell stories about? This way I actually meet the writers and have a connection.

Agashe does not believe the plays they do are elitist, they are “massy” too, but the problem is the lack of performing spaces. “The suburbs of Mumbai do not have enough theatres… or museums or libraries. See, we understand what is commercial. We want to work not just for bread and butter but also for jam. But that doesn’t mean we will not do good work. We are clear about that from the beginning.”

Brought up in Pune (“no relative of Mohan Agashe”), she started acting in plays right from school; in college she took up Sanskrit, “only because classes got over at 9.30 am I had the whole day to do theatre. I had no idea what to do with a degree in Sanskrit.”

Before she even graduated, she got admission into NSD. “I learnt everything there. Apart from Marathi playwrights like Tendulkar, Alekar, Elkunchwar, I didn’t know much. In the Sanskrit drama class, I could speak up, because I had studied some; in the other classes I kept quiet. My Hindi improved, I met Zeeshan there; we were best friends and had the same attitude towards our work. I stayed back in Delhi for some years after graduating, and had no desire to come to Mumbai. Had made enough to live on, we would not even have moved. Zeeshan and I did not come here to do films or TV. I believed I could live quite comfortably doing Marathi commercial theatre.”

Mumbai was an eye-opener. Agashe says she met every theatreperson she knew, but for a year and a half she did not get cast in any play. I did some TV because I was bored. Then I got Shafaat Khan’s Popatpanchi, my first Marathi commercial play! The problem was that if I wanted to say something, I would have to direct, and maybe produce. That’s how I became a director, with Ramu Ramanathan’s Collaborators.

“The NSD stamp is also problematic in a way. You come out of the NSD prepared for professional theatre, and discover there is no professional theatre in India. We try to set up a repertory but how can we find actors if we can’t pay them enough to survive in Mumbai. We realized we will have to do films and TV to manage to fund our theatre work. I also realise we can’t work in the old style when all actors were available to rehearse; I am a pro now, I work around everybody else’s schedules. But actors come and go; some remain with us, do their other work and return to the stage when we need them. But the scary thing is that everybody wants to be an actor. I am blunt with new people, I tell them it will take them years before they can even say a line properly, but the very next day, they sign up a serial. They don’t know anything, they never read anything, but they get up every morning and say, ‘Hum actor hain.’ They don’t see the struggle that goes behind becoming an actor in the true sense. I find that really scary.”

The dream is project called Food For Thought to provide books where they are needed, a work space where they can do their theatre the way they want to. “After doing so many films, Zeeshan knows fame is a by-product. We do commercial stuff to keep this meaningful work going. We want to make a strong base, do more smaller plays. Maybe one grand play in Marathi. Zeeshan still wants to work the Delhi way with months of rehearsal and a let’s-see-how-it-goes attitude. I pick a date to open a play and work backwards. What I really need is an uncle or aunty type of person, who will look after everything like funding and dates and travel, so that I can direct in peace. I am still looking…”

(This is an edited version of the piece that appeared in The Hindu in August 2018)

March 9, 2020 0 comments

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