
Several prominent theatre personalities stood in a long queue at the Opera House in Mumbai lrecently to get a signed copy of Amal Allana’s book on her father and the father of modern Indian theatre Ebrahim Alkazi. It was a historic evening, a fitting birth centenary tribute to the man who also made so much contribution to modern art movement and creating a huge collection of archival material on photographic albums.
Opera House was the appropriate venue. As Amal recalled in her conversation with Ranjit Hoskote, Anna Pavlova , the famed ballet dancer, performed in Opera House years ago. There was so much to talk there on Alkazi so Amal did not mention that Anna had a collaboration for a long time with Uday Shankar , the celebrated Indian dancer.
It was also appropriate that Rehaan Engineer, actor, and Sonam Kalra, singer, read out from the book in gripping theatrical fashion. Rehaan is trained in the royal academy of dramatic art school in London where Alkazi had his education years earlier.
In the audience was Sai Paranjapye, prominent director, writer, and Alkazi’s student in NSD National School of Drama in Delhi. She was there with her close friend Sharayu Doshi, art historian and curator. Sharayu Doshi’s husband Vinod had also played an important role in promoting experimental theatre in Mumbai. Sai remains active at age 85, her new Marathi play Iwalese Roap is being currently staged in Mumbai.
One missed Rohini Hattangadi, another Alkazi ex student, as she is touring the U.S. with her very popular feminist play Char Chaughi. She had played the main role in Razia Sultan Balwant Gargi’s play directed by Alkazi in Purana Quilla in Delhi in 1974.
It is interesting that Alkazi had his roots in a remote area in Saudi Arabia from here his father migrated to Pune and did enormously well in the spice trade. His father had an artistic bent and gave the best possible education to Ebrahim, frequently referred to last evening as Elk.
Alkazi had quickly Indianised himself with his study of Sanskrit and other theatres. The theatre space Alkazi built on the terrace of his building in Colaba was named Meghdoot, the famous play of Kalidasa. And as Sai Paranjapye later said to me in a chat his first play in NSD in 1962 was Ashadh Ka Ek Din of Mohan Rakesh, based on Kalidas’s work.
On this terrace early in his career he did a memorable production of the Greek tragedy Medea with Usha Amin in a powerful role. Rohini Hattangadi was to do the same role in Mumbai years later.
Amal Allana’s mother Roshen, was a prominent costumer designer and author of a book on the history of Indian theatre costume. She was the sister of Sultan or Bobby Padamsee of the well known Padamsee theatre family.
Amal herself is a prominent theatre personality and this is her first book which shows she is a very good writer. This is particularly clear from the way she has dealt with the complex psychological relationship between her father and mother after he got involved with Uma Anand ( wife of director Chetan Anand of Neecha Nagar film fame. )There was much tension, silence and lights would not be switched on even as darkness descended in the evening giving the children an eerie feeling. That is the kind of stuff for a Strindberg kind of play, one thought after listening to Allana.
M.F. Husain was a close friend, he did a series of drawins on the play Medea which pleased Alkazi greatly. But when Hussain did a drawing of Alkazi, Roshen and the two children, he was furious
There is also a large dramatis personae in the book —including M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, Akbar Padamsee, Gieve Patel, Nissim Ezekiel, Alyque Padamsee, Girish Karnad, Manohar Singh, Vijaya Mehta, Kusum Haidar and Gerson da Cunha..
It is sad that in the last fifty years one hardly got to see Alkazi in public functions in Mumbai. The city had a claim on him in this respect. One reason for his absence was he had become a non resident Indian in the 1980 for 20 years but came back to India in the wake of the racial tensions after the attack on the Twin Towers.
After the function it was good to meet several people including Ramu Ramanathan, a highly creative writer, translator, Sucharita Apte, who has done a lot of archival research for Allana’s book, Shekhar Hattangadi, who as the editor of Mirror magazine had struck a chord with Nissim Ezekiel , Shekhar’s wife Shaila Hattangadi, Hindustani vocalist, who personally knows Amal Allana. Sucharita worked on the NCPA archives earlier and is now doing research for a book on Baburao Painter, a prominent painter and film maker and mentor of V. Shantaram.
One missed the late Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, former art critic of Times of India and a creative writer in his own right. He lived a little distance away from Opera House, near French bridge. He had a unique insight into the world of M.F. Husain and Souza and Gaitonde as also of the literary world in English and Marathi.. He used to tell me that some of the earliest meetings of IPTA used to be held in the house of his sister who lived on Pali Hill. Jayant Nadkarni, Admiral, was his younger brother.
There was a reference to Harold Clurman, the distinguished American stage director, in the Opera House meeting. I fondly remember attending a two day discussion organised by USIS, now American Cultural Centre, led by Clurman in 1975.. Those two days were really fervent days like the title of his famous book Fervent Years. There was a strong left wing side to Clurman and it was evident continuously in his presentation. . Jayawant Dalvi and Mangesh Padgaonkar , prominent Marathi writers, used to work for USIS near Churchgate then. I miss the film screenings there as also special shows of American tv news round ups which were very much valued in those single TV channel, pre internet days.
However, there was not much in common in the world view of Clurman and Alkazi, Clurman was a major figure in the strong left wing cultural movement that the U.S. had . Alkazi did not have much to do with the left wing theatre movement in India, sadly when Habib Tanvir died, Alkazi declined to say anything particular, saying he had not seen much of his work. Tanvir was also trained in England and did most of his work in Delhi after early years in Mumbai. The two were different in many ways, Alkazi was the suited booted kind of a man, given his huge closeness to the art world, one would expect him to dress informally, M.F. Hussain in fact went barefoot, but there was that inevitable upper class character in Alkazi. Tanvir was always in his kurta pyjama, a common man’s clothing, and most of his artistes were ordinary people from Chhatisgarh who he trained to brilliant effect, using their language. A comparative study would be interesting.
Habib studied in a municipal school in Chhatisgarh and then in the government run Morris college in Nagpur.
Alkazi belonged to the Nehruvian dispensation. An era when leaders believed people failed them. Alkazi’s Tughlaq was a helpless visionary a la Nehru. When Prasanna directed the same play Tughlaq was the corrupt presiding deity who fostered corruption, started the rot.
Alkazi was dismissive of the theatre of his brother in law Alyque Padamsee. “He wanted to do West End, Broadway-style potboilers for readymade Parsi audiences. My purpose was to establish more purposive, meaningful theatre. Thus started Theatre Unit.” Which did avant garde work in its time. Sometimes discovered, other times honed the genius of actors like Gieve Patel, Pheroza Cooper, Hamid Sayani, Derryck Jefferies, Usha Amin, Gerson DCunha, Manohar Pitale.
The mothers must have suffered in both the patriarchal families. Husband and wife did not talk with each other for years. Alyque’s father was also said to have a number of mistresses.
Alyque Padamsee had recalled – Ours was a Kutchi business family. My father, Jafferseth, owned 10 buildings and also ran a glassware business. My mother, Kulsumbai Padamsee, ran a furniture business. Anything I wanted was there for the asking. We were eight children in all but I, being born after three daughters, was pampered most.
My parents were not on speaking terms for 20 years: My childhood was a sheltered one. But this also meant that a lot of things were not what they appeared to be. It was only when I was 18 that I realised my mother had not spoken with my father for 20 years. Much later, when I knew what it meant to fend for oneself, I realised what a cosy upbringing meant. Miss Murphy was a great influence: I attended Miss Murphy’s School and, later, Cathedral School in Bombay. Although we stayed in Bombay, we were sent to boarding house because my mother bore children at an amazing rate and found it difficult to manage all of us. Few could afford boarding school then. Among Gujarati families, it was only the Padamsees and the royal house of Rajpipla. At school, I learnt to speak in English. Later, our parents learnt the language from us. All that I am today is because of what I learnt at school. Miss Murphy, who ran the school, was an inspirational figure for m My brother Sultan initiated us into theatre: Sultan, my eldest brother, set the theatre trend among the Padamsees. Bobby, as he was affectionately called by Miss Murphy, banded together Ebrahim Alkazi, Hamid Sayani, Jean Bhownagiri and Deryck Je-ffereis.
So the Alkazi and Padamsee families were so very different from much of Indian society but made a significant contribution to our cultural life.
Vidyadhar Date is a senior journalist , culture critic and author of a book on public transport