‘In many ways, his theatre changed us’

HE WAS A COLOSSAL FIGURE OF THE 20TH CENTURY... I DON’T THINK THERE WAS EVER ANOTHER ALKAZI

nMUMBAI: In the 1950s, when I was still in college in Hyderabad pursuing an MA in Economics, I had already heard of Ebrahim Alkazi. He was barely in his 30s himself, but he was already a huge figure in theatre in Bombay, the most dynamic theatre producer in that city.

In fact I travelled all the way from Hyderabad to Bombay on a third-class train ticket, to see his staging of TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral.

And I was absolutely bowled over.

Since I had come all the way, for just one day, I was hoping I might get to meet him. I wasn’t sure he would bother with a young student who loved the stage. But when I went backstage, he gave me his time. He sat down with me and asked about my interest in theatre and whether I wrote at all myself. I told him I wrote poetry.

To my surprise, he asked if I had anything to show him. I told him it was all childish stuff, but he said, read some out to me. And I did. He invited me to his home, he read out his poems to me. I think perhaps my passion for the theatre touched him. It was a wonderful evening.

It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Here was somebody who had a huge reputation, who thought that my words mattered. I never met him again, oddly, but that meeting in many ways changed me as a person.

Alkazi was a colossal figure of the 20th century. He did more innovative work than anyone else. When he was chosen to head the National School of Drama, he took his unique approach and turned it into an educational style.

All those who came out of the National School of Drama at that time were quite extraordinary figures, and I used many of these actors in my films later in my own career.

I don’t think there was ever another Alkazi.

Everybody used to say he dominated English theatre and he did everything in the Western style, but he changed that when he went to Delhi. His production of Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq was extraordinary. He was always innovating — in form, in presentation.

He was friendly but equally reserved with a quiet sense of humour, but some people were daunted by him, because he was a sort of natural teacher. He commanded that status of guru. That was who he was. You just met him and instantly had so much respect for him.