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My Salaam To Vijay Tendulkar

Vijay Tendulkar tends to be equated with the big plays, the controversial films, the dubious debates. But one of the reasons, Tendulkar remains a living playwright, is the manner in which he surfaces in the most unexpected of places.

In the last summer, I saw the staging of two of Tendulkar’s one act plays, OLAKH and GOSHT in the boy’s common room at Ruparel College. The staging was stark with minimal props and one halogen light. In a clever bit of improvisation, six table-tennis tables were placed vertically to demarcate areas and wings. There was an audience of more than 70-odd youngsters who sat on the floor or bench-chairs, in the sweltering heat; and revelled in the experience.

Ruparel (like innumerable city colleges in Mumbai) has a strong culture of theatre. In the eighties, ex-students like Shafaat Khan, made the college their adda. In the early nineties, Satyadev Dubey conducted workshops in the very same common room. These sessions attracted 250 students and young people. During these sessions, Dubey invited (to be precise, demanded ) theatre groups to showcase their plays for the benefit of the workshop students. Besides Naseeruddin Shah’s plays, the common room had seen shows of Tendulkar’s BABY (directed by Chetan Datar) and CYCLEWALLAH (directed by Sunil Shanbag). It amazing, how this tradition of hosting Tendulkar’s plays continues. And his writing continues to reign.

The plays are used by young students as reading exercises; and as part of study groups. What this means is, Tendulkar’s plays become a benchmark for the newest generation of Marathi Rangakarmi. This includes, new talent like Irawati Karnik, Deepak Rajyadaksha, Adwait Dadarkar, Darshan Jadhav, etc. They perform the plays in a space which is fully utilised, sometimes spilling into the huge balcony, the maidan outside and even the canteen on the ground floor. The energy, the madness that is theatre has to be seen to be believed. And this is possible, to a great extent, since the reputation of Tendulkar (like Shakespeare in England) gives legitimacy to their activity.

Tendulkar’s body of work is formidable. He has penned 28 full length plays, seven collections of one-acts, six collections of children’s plays, four collections of short stories, three collections of essays, a novel, and 17 film scripts, in a short span of 50 years.

In an interview, he famously said, “Give me a piece of paper, any paper and a pen and I shall write as naturally as the bird flies or a fish swims. For the last 50 years, I have been writing, sitting in newspaper offices, at roadside restaurants, on the crowded local trains and when my living space did not allow me to be myself, I have written in the bathroom. And I have written on the sick bed in the hospital in spite of the doctor’s advice to not tax myself. He did not know that writing was not taxing for me at all. On the contrary it was soothing. It was a great relief. It was joy.”

But these days, it is not easy to write. For a playwright, in today’s time to confront an indifferent audience is untenable. Tendulkar knows this. He cares. He is aware, we inhabit a bizarre world. The theatre as we understand it has moved from candid intensity to intense candour. Everyone is chattering, aloud, and the noise is insufferable. It could blunt lesser minds.

In the Tirugata annual performances at Ninasam, they have one Kannada play, one adaptation of an Indian play and one translated Western play. And the common factor in the Tirugata plays is that the first scene has to have more noise onstage than the noise in the audience! IPTA used this modus operandi, ages ago, when they had ideology on their side. An open truck would enter a crowded mohalla, create a hullabaloo, and the play would be performed on the truck.

One of the reasons this is happening is because we’ve begun to distrust the potency of the word.

And then, suddenly in the midst of the clamour and din, I attended a Tendulkar reading. It was a simple, unfussy format. He was alone on an enormous stage, accompanied by a few sheets of papers. He read his favourite poems by the new generation of Marathi poets, short stories, even newspaper columns. Basically, fragmented thoughts, and remarkably, the audience sat in rapt attention for more three hours. This was the magic of the word. Of course, it helps matters that Tendulkar (in the finest tradition of Marathi playwrights) is a brilliant reader. It also provided a big boost to the popularity ratings of the poets, authors, essayists.

Then, on cue, there was a bit of drama. Tendulkar began reading Jayant Pawar’s interview with a death clerk in the Worli crematorium. Jayant Pawar, is a playwright-journalist (like Tendulkar was). He had conducted the interview in the early nineties. This interview was read by Vijay Tendulkar in an 1500 seater auditorium in Mulund. The audience was spell bound. This was because, the death clerk unselfconsciously discusses the deathliness of death with disarming honesty. The facts make a mockery of all our fancy notions of Hindu death rites. Inevitably, a few members of the middle-class, Brahmin audience raised a ruckus. It was a bulls eye. Tendulkar had scored.

Tendulkar paused, and enquired, if he should continue, and he did so, unruffled. Since then, Tendulkar has been having these readings at small gatherings, Municipal Schools. And through poems, essays, and Jayant Pawar’s interview (which is dying to be adapted onto the stage), Tendulkar celebrates the sense of dialogue.

Of course, there are obstacles. And the first thrust of control is usually directed towards the performing art. Since they are easy, soft targets. Recent history indicates that authoritarian powers are now aiming first at control of the performance arts media rather than the print media since the latter are more vulnerable to manipulation.

This is the main reason, Maharashtra has witnessed a longish saga of “banned” plays: Keechak Wadh by K P Khadilkar, Sakharam Binder and Gidhade by Vijay Tendulkar, Mee Nathuram Boltoy by Pradeep Dalvi, Bedtime Story by Kiran Nagarkar, Yada Kadachit by Santosh Pawar, Avadhya by C T Khanolkar, Golpeetha by Suresh Chikhale. The list is endless. And Tendulkar is in the midst of this battle in a Maharashtra which bans bar girls, makes people stand up for national anthem before a Bollywood or Hollywood phillum, silences voices of dissent.

Speaking of dissent, the most famous example of preventing a performance of a play is Vijay Tendulkar’s Ghashiram Kotwal. This play production was never banned officially by any government. However, the performances were stopped in 1972 because RSS applied pressure on the theatre group PDA. The group was established in 1952 by Bhalba Kelkar, Dr Lagoo, etc. Innumerable seniors from PDA had RSS linkage. This group within PDA decided to abandon the production of Ghashiram. On cue, the young artists revolted and established Theatre Academy, Pune on March 27, 1973. Theatre Academy could not perform play for one year till the political ruckus against the play, settled. Some of the socialists like the late N G Gore opposed the play. The play was considered an anti Brahmin play by Punekar Brahmins. It was directed by a Muslim. Although most of the actors were Brahmins (that too thorough-bred Chittpavans) like Agashe, Gadre, Kale, Pendse, Ranade and so on.

The second round of threat came in 1980 when the play was invited for the Berlin International Theatre Festival. This time, the Shiv Sena was in the forefront along with Vasant Sathe who was a Minister in the Central Cabinet in Delhi. Shiv Sena activists went in to court to get stay on the international tour planed by Theatre Academy, Pune. Sharad Pawar intervened. He arranged a formal meeting with Bal Thackeray at his residence. Theatre Academy artists attended. People like Sudhir Damle led the opposition. The other person opposing Ghasiram during the famous meeting. He was Daji Panshikar (brother of Prabhakar Panshikar). Interestingly, Vinay Apte (a theatrewallah close to Bal Thackeray) supported the play. Atal Bihari Vajpeyi supported the play. Jabbar Patel and Mohan Agashe made a presentation, but the meeting was non conclusive. Bal Thackeray was steadfast. He said the play should not go abroad.

Artists had to resort to police protection. The then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi intervened. Her PM note, drafted by her advisor Sharada Prasad in consultation with V N Gadgil (who supported the play and was also a Minister in Central Cabinet) and Kumud Mehta of NCPA. Satyajit Ray, Shombhu Mitra, Utpal Dutt, Mrinal Sen despatched telegrams to the PM office in support of the play. Of course (as all of us know), the play had a wonderful tour to West Europe with 25 performances. It got rave reviews in London Times, Guardian, Der Spigel, NTQ.

The Court issued an order that before each performance, a statement which was approved by the Court should be read-out. This statement publicly praised the achievements of Nana Phadanvis, over and above, stating that the play was not based on the true history. Theatre Academy followed the court order.

There is an interesting postscript. Since 1996, the University of Pune has included Ghashiram Kotwal in its BA/MA (Theatre) syllabus in its prescribed textbook. In 2000, one of the MA students staged Sakharam Binder as a production for MA (Theatre) practical exam. In the past, the student was a RSS activist. His parents have been full-time RSS activists for 20 years.

Strange, but true.

One flashbacks into history because it is an important co-oridnate to understand today’s processes. Tendulkar took punga, then. He takes bigger pungas now. He believes in the axiom that a good writer, upsets both sides. One sorely misses this in today’s theatre. Last few years, the vibrant Marathi prayogik rangabhoomi (experimental theatre) staged more than 25 plays. This is terrific, and part of a larger churning at the grassroot-level. But almost all the plays were conformist and traditional. No one, it seems is daring to rebel.

The powers that be are clever. The Andhra Pradesh Government may arrest Vera Vera and Kalyan Rao in full public glare, but for most parts the forces of intolerance prefer to co-opt the author. Its easier, and no one protests.

This makes a lot of sense when you consider what happened to Vijay Tendulkar, who was in the news, after the Gujarat genocide, when he said if had a pistol, he would shoot Narendra Modi. I was travelling in Gujarat during those days, and I realised how unpopular Tendulkar is. The Gujarati middle class and Gujarati press loathed him. Effigies were burnt. Of course this is the very same middle class and press which worships, Mr Modi, the kind and compassionate, who is everywhere. In newspapers, road hoardings, smiling beneficently from the back of ST buses, blessing the land and its people to Peace and Prosperity.

Most of my colleagues in theatre believed, Tendulkar shouldn’t have said what he did. That a true artiste should not get mixed up with politics. I, totally disagree. I believe, art and politics can never be separated. You can’t separate art and politics because politics is life. Its also a fact that life is political and art is about life, so it is inevitable that art should be political!

But the bigger issue is one about the nature of complicity in an artist. That is, what constitutes complicity? Is it one’s responsibility always to act out against a tyrannical regime, or to, in perhaps more subtle ways, to beat the system?

Being a theatrewallah from Mumbai, with supposed inside info, I was embroiled into a discussion in one of the road-side dhabas in Gujarat. The summation of a heated debate was, Tendulkar should be asked to leave the country, since he loathes its ways and means.

But the point is, you cannot ask Tendulkar to leave the country. Once you pose that question, then you have to ask the pao-wallah or garagewallah in Ahmedabad, so, you hate Mr Modi, too? Then leave!

Promptly, other voices joined the debate. Letters to the editor of the Marathi newspapers from Brahmins and upper caste Maharashtrians raved and ranted against Tendulkar. Even Sharad Pawar (who, unlike Mr Modi, is a progressive politician and a honourable man), stated in a public address that the responsibility of the well-known artist or historian is different.

But if you’re going to be consistent, the questions have to be the same. This is what Tendulkar makes us do. Even now. Ask those questions!