TELL ME A TALE
Director Arvind Gaur is adapting short stories by some of the best-known writers in Indian languages to the stage for Asmita’s 25th anniversary
After more than 30 years on the stage, you’d think veteran director Arvind Gaur would be done with pre-production jitters. But the founder of Asmita—India’s largest contemporary theatre group— appears to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown as he prepares for the troupe’s next show. Or maybe it’s just an act. “Relax, I am OK. This avatar of mine ensures that the actors’ energy levels are at their peak before the show,” the visibly hyper 54-year-old says.
Asmita celebrated its 25th anniversary in July. The group now has 250 members, and is renowned for its hard-hitting socio-political productions. But as he downs bitter lemon tea that he insists packs a bigger jolt that several cans of Red Bull, Gaur veers from one tangent to another, rather than discussing his plan to stage stories by Indian writers to encourage reading among school and college students.
As a result, the conversation zigzags in multiple directions. It starts with how his passport was impounded in 2008, with Gaur himself under surveillance by the Intelligence Bureau. “What did they expect to expose?
The whole country knows that I do anti-establishment plays!” he says.
Then there was the time two members of his group were arrested by policemen right after the 2012 bombings in Delhi—because they had beards and were wearing black clothes. “I stormed the CP police station with 200 actors, all dressed in black. They were released within a few hours.”
And then there’s the non-bailable warrants issued against him one day before the play Godse@Gandhi. com. “All of this happened under the Congress government. It amuses me no end when these so-called liberals on Facebook talk about intolerance in the time of Modi,” he says. “Every government is the same. It’s just that self-censorship has increased now. My motto is clear—Asmita will fight for social justice and pick up themes like inequality, caste, rape, domestic violence and corruption without propagating any political ideology.” In truth, Asmita is as much a political outfit as a theatre troupe. But they know where to draw the line.
Gaur handled the cultural wing of the India Against Corruption movement from 2010 to 2011— forming eight teams of actors to perform 70-80 street plays in Delhi every day. He laughs as he describes how several of his actors were offered tickets by the Aam Aadmi Party for the last Delhi assembly elections.
“We refused. Asmita is about checking the system, not becoming a part of it.”
His latest project is to stage short stories by Indian writers. “In our productions, drama will take a back seat. The story will be under the spotlight,” he says. “This will be the highlight of the 25th year of our existence.” Asmita plans to stage stories by writers like Uday Prakash, Yashpal, Asghar Wajahat and Sharad Chander as part of its year-long celebrations. There will be performance poetry as well—a brilliant exercise for actors in terms of bringing forth metaphors in physical form.
Though he has trained and worked with several big names from the Indian film industry—Kangana Ranaut, Sonam Kapoor, Mallika Sarabhai and Mahesh Bhatt to name a few—Gaur prefers not to work with actors trained at theatre institutes. “I have my own vocabulary and prefer them raw. [Trained actors] come with a lot of baggage,” he says.
The key to making theatre live is making it pay, he believes. And that’s his proudest achievement as founder of Asmita. “We killed the culture of free passes in theatre. Not even a family member can watch my play without buying a ticket.” —Sukant Deepak
“IT AMUSES ME NO END WHEN THESE SO-CALLED LIBERALS ON FACEBOOK TALK ABOUT INTOLERANCE IN THE TIME OF MODI”