What I did for Theatre,

It all started the day I joined Kirorimal College. My brother, Sudhakar, had waited for two years for me to arrive! For two years he had watched with disgust the pathetically substandard level of comedy plays that were performed in the inter-college competitions. Of course, on the serious side, there were those "Men Without Shadows" type of plays.

We did two productions in the Inter-Class Competition (i.e.,within the college), both written and directed by Sudhakar himself. Both plays turned out to be big hits and Yours Truly "arrived" - with 'the Third Best Actor' (sic!) award! Well, we all know, a first year 'fresher' couldn't have been shown any more favours than that!!!

PAANCH PANDAV ( the first performance)
R to L - Kanwar Deepak Gulati, Sudhakar Shastry & Yours truly!

Sudhakar passed out that year, a happy and 'contented' writer-director, and went on to perform more than a thousand shows of that famous comedy "Paanch Paandav" at various levels and places - from the Annual Functions of various Ordnance Factories that he worked in, to the famous "Ganeshotsavs" of Pune - from social gatherings of various 'Associations', to week-end children's "workshop" performances on the terraces of the houses of various colonies !

Well, to continue with my own journey. By the time I got to the final year, fed up with the 'politics' of the amateur college theatre, decided to form a professional theatre group. Along with dear friend Deepak.... ummm.... Acchaa baba! .... Kanwar (!) Deepak Gulati, formed what was perhaps the first "professional" theatre group of its kind in the campus of Delhi University, bringing together talents from different colleges on one stage. The group VAATAAYAN (meaning "a small window") soon became popular. The advantage of having members from different colleges was that as a 'group', we could perform in most of the campus colleges, which, otherwise as a 'college troupe' was possible only during competitions and festivals. VAATAAYAN was received so well that the Convocation Hall - sparsely and reverently used for Ceremonies - became our abode for daily rehearsals !

Incidentally, of the millions of students that passed out from Delhi University over the years, only a few hundreds might have seen the Convocation Hall from inside!

Besides Kirorimal College, VAATAAYAN had students from Colleges - Hindu, Ramjas, Shriram, Khalsa, Janki Devi and Miranda, Faculty of Buddhist Studies, Department of Philosophy - among many others.

For reasons best known to them, the poor Stephanians always looked down upon Hindi Theatre!

The Students Movement brought about by Jayaprakash Narayan and the subsequent "Emergency" stubbed out the spirit of our own 'movement'.

(We had to seek Police permission for performances, had to get scripts of the plays censored and each individual had to get a clearance for performing by the Police Dept.)

I had left home by now, in pursuit of my idealogy!

More from college days ...

My 'friend, philosopher and guide' - and my 'Godfather' for the larger part of my life, Ravi Baswani, has this to say -

" The one and only good thing that Gulati (of course 'Kanwar Deepak !') did in his life, is that he introduced me to Ravikiran Shastry !!! "

First January 1976 it was when I was introduced to the real 'professional theatre'.

"non-Group" - an ensemble of theatre professionals, had just been born, breaking out of the shackles of 'groupism' in the prevading theatre scene around Mandi House in Delhi.

"non-Group" to me was, in fact, an extension of my own experiment with VAATAAYAN - bringing together people from different 'set-ups'.

I was fortunate to work with the likes of B.M. Shah, Mohan Upreti, Naseeruddin Shah, Bansi Kaul, V. Ramamurthy and many other prominent personalities of performing and non-performing arts, who were, in some way or the other, associated with "non-Group". Besides this, I got to work for other groups as well - those of Ramgopal Bajaj, Nadira & Raj Babbar, Ranjit Kapoor, Anil Chaudhary, Safdar Hashmi and many more.

"non-Group" as a team, was also involved in designing and executing sets, lights, costumes, make-up, presentations and any other back-stage work. With Bansi Kaul and Ramesh Manchanda, two of the best technicians of the era, as our 'gurus', we worked back-stage for many of the ballets and other performances of Bharatiya Kala Kendra, Kathak Kendra and other such institutions all over India.

Also, as a team, "non-Group" was involved in doing workshop productions for many schools and colleges in and around Delhi.

All this helped me learn a lot about people - young and old, professional and amateur, humble and snobbish, sincere and opportunists!

"non-Group" proved to be the best 'school' for me, though I did join the National School of Drama, but, within one year, disillusioned, I left it.

Incidentally, it was supposed be 'National School of Drama and Asian Theatre Institute', but, somewhere along the line, before I joined, it became National School of Drama!

One of the most memorable plays I did was "Chitrit Pratima" directed by Ram Gopal Bajaj. The play was a dramatic adaptation of Jnanapeeth award winning book 'Cittirampavai' by P. V. "Akilon" and was performed at the Award Ceremony. I wonder how many actors can boast of performing in Vigyaan Bhawan - in front of the President of India!

One fine evening in March 1977 Ravi Baswani came to know that I had left home and lived in the lonesome Arts Faculty, with no money on me. From that day on, I became part of the Baswani family and was christened 'Chhota' (junior) ----- Ravi Baswani's younger brother!

Some of my favourite productions -

Production	Director	Co-actors (among others)	Assignment
Kumar ki chhat par	Ravi Baswani	Banwari Taneja, Ravi Baswani	Kumar
Ganga Maati	Ram Gopal Bajaj	Surendra Verma	Villager
Aadam (Based on Iqbal's poems)	Nadira Zaheer Babbar	Raj Babbar, Anupam Kher, Pankaj Kapoor, Anita Kanwar, Neena Gupta, Kavita Chaudhary	Various Roles
Jasma Odan	Deepak Kejariwal	Host of Kamala Nehru College Girls!	Dala ji
Julius Caesar	Ravi Baswani	Banwari Taneja, Ravi Baswani, Ramesh Manchanda	Octavius Caesar
Tughlaq	Shailendra Raghuvanshi		Sets, Lights
Krishnayan (ballet)	Pt. Birju Maharaj	Kathak Kendra	Sets, Lights
Ramlila (ballet)	Guru Shankaran Nair	Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra	Sets
Rajula - Malushahi (ballet)	B. M. Shah	Parvatiya Kala Kendra	Sets, Lights

As it were with many a known artistes, (like Amitabh Bacchan and Ravi Baswani!) even I was rejected both by the Akaashwani and the Doordarshan in their respective auditions!

Those were the days when appearing in a Television Play, in Delhi particularly, was almost as big an event as appearing in a Subhash Ghai film in Bombay !

Despite rejection in the official audition, I was destined to act in the 'mega-opus' of Doordarshan plays of the era, titled "US BASTI MEIN" and directed by Devendra Goswami. The play had almost all the known TV stars of the day with Raj Babbar as a journalist in the lead and 'yours truly' playing his 'investigative accomplice' in exposing illicit liqour mafia.

Years later, in 1984, we were shooting Shekhar Kapur's "JOSHILAY" in Laddakh. Of course Sunny Deol and Anil Kapoor had become household names in the little villages around those hilly deserts when, in August, Rajiv Gandhi inaugurated Leh Doordarshan Kendra. On the first day itself a play "NAMAK KA DAROGA" was telecast in which I had played the Daroga. The little known Assistant Director to Shekhar Kapur that I was, became a star overnight in Leh with people coming to visit me with gifts!!!

One fine morning in early February 1978, Sai Paranjpye landed in Delhi to shoot her first, and no doubt her best, feature film. 'non-Group' as a team was destined to be part of her 'creative' team. We were associated with the Direction, Production, Costume, Art and Properties Departments for the film.

The film was "SPARSH" - and that 'touch' of cinema was to have an everlasting imprint on my career.

Sai went on to make "CHASHME-BUDDOOR" two years later where again the entire 'non-Group' was associated. Such was our professionalism and such was Sai's faith in us that she was qouted in one of the film magazines - "I had such an efficient team, of Ravi Baswani and his associates, that if I had asked for a pink elephant in the night, it would have been at my doorstep next morning !"

It was during the shooting of SPARSH that I was packed off to Jagraon, near Ludhiana, in Punjab, to 'look after costume continuity etc.' for some Punjabi film. Little did I know that I was to land up as the Assistant Director for the film "CHANN PARDESI" which went on to win National Award for the Best Punjabi film.

"CHANN PARDESI" was dircted by Chitraarth Singh and not, I repeat NOT, by Ravinder Peepat as was made to beleive later on by some selfish people.

Thus the Indian Administrative Services, for which I was preparing, lost me out to the Film Industry forever !!!

To be Continued....