Aldo had a keen sense of ‘drama’

THEATRE was a passion with Aldrin “Aldo” Naidu, and how apropos that was, as he had a keen sense of the dramatic.

As dramatic as the content of his plays were, they were devised with much humour. Laughter was the hallmark of Naidu.

No matter how tense a situation could be, he easily diffused it with his own style of wit and humour. Mutual colleague Deena Pillay recalls an incident involving Aldo which succinctly demonstrates his people skills.

One of his plays centred on the late Amichand Rajbansi. The Raj was irate that the play was being performed and sought an audience with Brijlall Ramguthee, then editor of POST, where Aldrin was employed.

The Raj remonstrated with the editor as to why his employee was allowed to write a play that poked fun at him. Ramguthee, unflappable as always, calmly asked the then minister to talk to Aldrin personally.

When the hour-long meeting in the POST boardroom was over, Rajbansi left the building and a calm and collected Naidu went over to Pillay and asked him to attend that evening’s performance of the play.

Afzal Khan, the brilliant comedian, played Rajbansi in the play and at a strategic point in the performance, the spotlight was directed to the aisle in the auditorium. The audience turned to see what was going on and was surprised to see the real Rajbansi striding, like a wrestler, towards the stage.

The rest was theatre history as both “Rajbansis” hammed it up on stage for a few minutes, the traditional forefinger wagging, “threatening” each other.

Despite all the haranguing that went on in that boardroom, Naidu still managed to win the Raj over. Not many could pull off something like that.