Ebrahim Alkazi: An Institution Builder Who Changed The Language Of Modern Indian Theatre
On 5th May 2017, National School of Drama popularly known as NSD decided to dedicate the theatre complex to such a name who was an institutional builder and with his magnificent vision he changed the language of modern Indian theatre. It was a great decision as this man was himself as an institution, an outstanding teacher and legendary stage director. For him, stage is everything. After his joining in NSD in 1962 as a director of NSD, he brought a lot of changes and developed the spaces for performances within the NSD. He built up studio theatre and Open Air Meghdoot Theatre around NSD. Within a very short period of time, he became very much popular in NSD. His name is Ebrahim Alkazi. When naming the theatre complex had been announced, there was a misunderstanding as the invitation card wrongly mentioned the renaming of Meghdoot to Ebrahim Alkazi. This mistake had been rectified by Academy giving clarification that NSD is a big complex and having four theatres which have been named as Meghdoot by Ebrahim Alkazi only and no one will dare to change. Only complex of Rangpeeth will be known as Ebrahim Alkazi Rangpeeth.
From Yogesh Gogwekar
Ebrahim Alkazi was born on 18th October 1925 in Pune in the wealthy Saudi Arabian businessman who was doing trading in India. His mother was Kuwaiti. He was one of the nine siblings. Even after 1947, his entire family shifted to Pakistan, Ebrahim Alkazi decided to stay in India. He started his schooling in St. Vincent’s High school in Pune and graduated from St. Xavier’s college, Mumbai. During his school days, he started getting the comprehensive education and with the help of school’s principal Father Rifkin, he started receiving books to read from the school library. During his college days, he had great exposure to the wide range of books. He did his education in Arabic, Marathi, Gujrati and English. In St. Xavier’s college, Mumbai, he took his first strides in theatre. Alkazi decided to join the English Theatre Company whose owner was his friend Sultan Padamsee (brother of Alyque Padamsee). After seeing his talent in theater, he was selected for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Army (RADA) and went to England for further studies in London in 1947.
Before going to London, he married Roshen Padamsee who was costume designer and sister of Alyque and Sultan Padamsee. In London, English Drama League and British Broadcasting Corporation had offered him career opportunities to work with them but Ebrahim Alkazi rejected this offer as he decided to come back to India and worked for theatre in India. In Mumbai, he rejoined the Bobby Padamsee Theatre Group and achieved the great name in the theater. He worked there till 1954. At the time of working there, he realised that just working for English theatre , he could not develop Indian Art and Culture. Therefore, he decided to learn Sanskrit and Hindi and also took much interest in performances in Marathi and Gujrati languages. In 1960, he was asked to come to Delhi to take over the chairmanship of Sangeet Natak Academi and provide help to do the setup of National School of Drama. This was a great challenge for him. He accepted this job even after knowing that Delhi is not setting place for him. This was a turning point of his life. In 1962, he became the director of NSD and gave his contributions till 1977. He became its longest serving director.
In NSD Delhi, he started witnessing several productions and directed many plays of well-known playwrights like Dharamveer Bharati, Mahesh Elkunchwar, Mohan Rakesh, Girish Karnad etc. He also started directing the Sanskrit classics Kalidas and Shudraka and even old western classic plays of Shakespeare, Moliere etc. It is being said that his talent had been noticed when he directed Hindi drama Andha Yug in the right setting. This drama is based on Mahabharata war written by Dharamveer Bharati. He also directed the drama Tughlaq in Hindi (Origin in Kannada written by Girish Karnad) and Ashad Ka Ek Din written by Mohan Rakesh. These dramas became so popular for best direction, nicely set design, use of proper costumes and lighting and above all beauty of choreography. He always read the drama carefully and made the changes accordingly to make it modern before bringing on stage. He taught the Western and Asian drama and direction with a painstaking degree of perfection. He used to teach his students the style of singing and dancing, recommending books, movies, paintings and music to understand the drama in a better way and to make them all-rounder on the stage.
Ebrahim Alkazi was a disciplined and strict person. He used to ask his students to be ready at 6 am to do the drama practice in open air to improve their voices. He never used to spare them even during the winter. He always used to tell his students that he wants to hear their softest whisper. He used to say that his greatest strength as a theatre director was his intellectual humility which he derived from continuous learning and getting knowledge of different things. According to his son Faisal who was educationist and theatre director, Alkazi has been striving for perfection as long as he can remember and there has been a professional stamp to everything he has done. He further said that he always taught us to do our work without cutting corners. At the time of developing the theatre, Alkazi did not receive any institutional support . At the time of speaking with an academic and well-known theatre scholar Javed Malic, he said that he has done theatre under all circumstances. He further said that he had created theatre in his drawing room in arena style. He also created the studio theatre in Rabindranath Bhawan which consists of two walls.
Ebrahim Alkazi worked in NSD for fifteen years and created glorious theatre history in NSD. He made NSD as India’s Premier Institution. During his tenure in NSD, numbers of actors and directors developed under his direction. Their names are Vijaya Mehta, Om Puri, Sudha Shivpuri, Naseeruddin Shah, Uttara Bavkar, Suhas Joshi, Jyoti Subhash, Jaydev and Rohini Hattangaddi, Pankaj Kapoor, B V Karanth, Neelam Mansingh, Manohar Sing, Vijay Kashyap and many more. For these people, he was not only a teacher but also an excellent mentor in everything from academic education to their personal issues. He embodied the spirit of a nation on the cusp of independence. Still in 1977, his working in NSD was mired in controversy. He was an old fashioned man and the environment of NSD had also been changed a lot which he could not adapt. Therefore, he decided to quit. He went into complete exile from the theatre after leaving NSD and returned back after ten years i.e. early 1990 as a guest director of NSD. In 1977, He formed Art Heritage Gallery in Delhi with his wife Roshan.
Alkazi has been honoured with many prestigious awards. He was honoured with Padma Shree in 1966 and Padma Bhushan in 1991 and Padma Vibhushan in 2010 for his contributions towards theatre. He was the first person to receive Roopwedh Pratishthan’s Tanvir Award in 2004 for lifetime achievement for Indian theatre. Sangeet Natak Academi had given awards twice for his contributions in Drama, Music and Dance. Such a great person died on 4th August 2020 at the age of 95 after suffering a massive heart attack. At the time of praying tribute to him, The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind said ,'' Ebrahim Alkazi, doyen of Indian theatre, mentored and inspired generations of artists. His death leaves a void in the world of performing arts. A Padma Vibhushan recipient, his legacy will live on. My condolences to his family, students and art lovers”. In the tweet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Alkazi would be remembered for making theatre more popular and accessible across the country.
Ebrahim Alkazi had lived in the world of theatre. He once said that, “I think theatre is something we create. I really think it is ultimately created in the imagination, in the minds of the audience. I have always worked in the simplest as well as in the most arduous conditions. On the other hand, if you have the resources which have been provided to you, it would be absolutely ridiculous to deny them all. It is absolute rubbish to say that my style of work does not give freedom to the actor. It liberates the actor in many ways. The very idea of art is precision and control. In any one of the disciplines of dance or traditional theatre (for example, Kathakali) you have a basic training of something like 14 years which eventually takes you through a very limited range of characters which you interpret for the rest of your life. Therefore, this business of improvisation comes only when a basic discipline has been mastered over a period of years”.
It is true that he had done the theatre in all circumstances. NSD has taken the great decision by giving Alkazi’s name to the complex. It is a tribute to a man who has developed NSD and gave impetus to Indian theatre. He will be remembered till theatres are alive.
Mumbai
21/03/2021.
Comments
Post a Comment