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Rita Welinkar (English)
Published in Marathi (Mouj Prakashan, 1990) and in the author's English translation (Orient Longman, 1995), this is the story of a woman struggling to come to terms with the circumstances of her life - her self-absorbed, hyper-critical parents, the need to give up her education to become the family's breadwinner, the gradual awakening of love for her boss, gentle and supportive, but married, and the double life she is forced into because this love must be hidden from the world. The emotional stress of being in a relationship without a future brings on a nervous breakdown; and it is in hospital, coming out of it, that she understands what she wants most from life under the given circumstances and finds the strength, with help from her school-friend Saraswathi and her youngest sister Sangeeta, to go out and get it.
Published in Marathi (Mouj Prakashan, 2008) and in the author's English translation Crowfall (Penguin 2013), this novel follows the creative problems and choices of three artists - a Hindustani classical vocalist, a teacher and a journalist living in Mumbai - through one eventful year, 2004. Striving to be true to themselves in the face of the violence that has riven the city, the pressures of the art world, the closing of ranks by conformists against innovation and the rise of fake spirituality, they find solace in their work and in the friendship that binds them together. The novel is also a nuanced portrait of contemporary Mumbai.
Avinash, the protagonist of the play is a social misfit who has turned alcoholic. He is heard but never seen throughout the duration. However, his disturbing presence dominates the lives of his family. When he dies mysteriously, they withdraw into their own diverse ways of dealing with the trauma, leading to irresoluble interpersonal conflicts. The end brings an uncertain glimmer of hope for the future.
Avinash was directed by Satyadev Dubey in Marathi and by Sunil Shanbag in Hindi. It was later staged in Kannada, Malayalam and Assamese translations.
A strong tradition of playwriting has contributed more than any other aspect of theatre to the continuing richness of Marathi drama. This study attempts to discover, through the mainstream - professional and the parallel-amateur theatres, how the tradition began and grew. It examines the history, the social context and individual plays that became significant markers in the journey. It ends by recording the voices of young playwrights and directors of the 1990s who show promise of carrying on the tradition. The study is thus a comprehensive story of how Marathi theatre has come to occupy a leading position in Indian theatre.
This book brings together essays, reviews and interviews related to the work of Satyadev Dubey whom Dr Dharamvir Bharati, author of the modern classic Andha Yug, hailed as the harbinger of spring in Hindi theatre. It also presents a selection of Dubey's writings for newspapers and magazines which, while shedding light on his approach to his work, which included translation of modern European classics into Hindi, directing the work of new Indian playwrights and conducting workshops for playwrights and actors, also acted as provocations to push theatre practitioners into thinking and asking questions. The book underlines the personal choices that Dubey's lifelong dedication to non-commercial theatre demanded from him and the creative energy that made him relevant in theatre for fifty years.
Veenapani Chawla was a pioneer of experimental theatre. She evolved a unique form of performance and methodology for training. This book traces her journey from her schooldays when she first woke up to the possibilities of theatre, through her years in Mumbai where she began her experiments with forms that would be in tune with Sri Aurobindo's philosophy of which she was a follower, to her work at Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art and Research which she founded in Puducherry in 1994. The story of her theatre work with its many offshoots is told through essays, reviews, interviews and performance texts, along with her own papers presented at national and international seminars.
This book is a story of the people who drove experimental theatre in Mumbai for over five decades, told through their voices and recollections. Some of the people are Shyam Benegal, Gerson da Cunha, G. P Deshpande, Sulabha Deshpande, Satyadev Dubey, Girish Karnad, Alyque Padamsee, Alaknanda Samarth, Sunil Shanbag, Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak-Shah. This is also the story of three spaces in the city which provided the physical and creative environment necessary for theatre to flourish. They are the Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute, Walchand Terrace and Chhabildas Hall, where plays like Miss Julie, Band Darwaze, Hayavadana, Uddhwasta Dharmashala and Aadhe Adhure were rehearsed and performed.
A transvestitie who has been a female impersonator on the Marathi music stage, is trapped between his longing to rise above the sordid reality of his life after theatre and the impossibility of his dream of becoming a woman.
The three plays in the trilogy trace the story of the Dharangaonkar Deshpandes, once well-off Brahmin landowners, reduced to hollow gentility by an act of parliament that has taken land from landlords to give it to the tillers. In reduced circumstances, the family must now look ahead to a different future in which, along with economic forces, the elements themselves turn inimical.
Short essays by Prabhakar Barve on his creative process and the problems of making art.
A leading actor of Marathi theatre and Hindi cinema, writes about her childhood, her early marriage and the circumstances that led her into the film industry. Her spirits dipped briefly when her husband died, but she rose and moved on, determined to be independent. In a creer that spanned five decades, she acted in over 200 films.
Arun Khopkar looks at three of Guru Dutt's best-known films, Pyaasa, Kaagaz ke Phool and Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam, analysing the film-maker's aesthetic against the context of the history of cinema, the romantic tradition and the deep melancholia that was the film-maker's personal cross.
A scathing, humourous and absurd narrative built around the character of Achyut Athavale, a retired economist and public intellectual who unwittingly causes a riot to break out in Pune, his city. He seeks refuge in a home of the aged where he suffers a temporary loss of memory and murders a fellow inmate. While he looks forward to being punished, several forces work in unison to ensure that he is not.
A searing and darkly funny study of mental illness which is, at the same time, a moving story about love and family relationships.
Mahadeo Tailor's fortunes have hit rock bottom. Village life is hard. Kautik is prepared to work herself to the bone to feed her family; but Mahadev will not stir. Their older son Bhima is a rebel. Nama helps but is helpless against the odds that keep piling up against the family. Yasodi is too young to do anything. Although Kautik will not give up, she crumbles in the end, rising to become one of Marathi literature's most tragic epic heroines.
Vishnubhat Godse and his uncle set off on a journey to the north in the hope of earning some money to pay off family debts. Instead they find themselves in the midst of the great uprising of 1857. Godse tells the story of his adventurous journey through those difficult times with a simplicity of language and a vividness of detail that are captivating. In the process, unknowingly, he renders for future readers arguably the first eye-witness account of what came to be known as the First War of Independence.
A docudrama about the 16-year long hunger strike that Manipur’s Irom Chanu Sharmila undertook to protest against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act; its failure and her people’s rejection of her when she ended it and married an 'outsider'.
A translation of the Marathi classic “Shyamchi Aai” written by Sane Guruji during his jail term as a freedom fighter from 1932-1934. Published in 1935, it comprises a series of autobiographical stories that Shyam narrates about his mother's love and teachings which made him what he was.
Columns, essays, speeches, short fiction, short plays written over four decades by Shanta Gokhale on Mumbai, theatre, feminism, Marathi culture and music, assiduously collected and meticulously edited by Jerry Pinto.
This monograph draws on sources as varied as old chronicles, literary references, historical events and interviews with residents to draw a portrait of a park and its neighbourhood planned after the plague of 1896 to give the middle class a chance to live a healthier life away from the congested interiors of Bombay city.
A memoir of sorts that follows the events of the author’s body from extraction of tonsils through cancer surgery to bunions on the feet as a way of tracing the events of her life.
She was born back-stage to a lavani dancer in a tamasha troupe. A series of fortuitous events and her feisty grandmother's unflinching support, take her to London. Nirmala Patil relates the story of her life, peppered by several other stories, to an accidental friend who turns out to be a story-teller's dream listener.
In her wittily written memoirs which gained her the title of Sahitya Lakshmi, Lakshmibai Tilak, born in 1868, describes her early marriage and complex relationship with her husband, her separation from him when he converts to Christianity, and their reunion and her conversion when she grows disillusioned with the customs and caste divisions of Hindu society.
Rajeev Naik’s plays are hinged on a central question, often philosophical. The question inhabits him, nags him, goads him on to explore its theatrical possibilities. The result is plays that are unique both in concept and expression.
Satish Alekar is one of the most influential and progressive playwrights in modern Marathi and Indian theatre. In “A Grand Exit”, a dead man insists on being cremated in the old crematorium soon to be privatized. His son faces and overcomes the demands of all obligatory rituals in order to fulfill his dead father’s wish. In “A Conversation with Dolly” an old man, locked down during the pandemic, spends his last days in a world of Amazon parcels, pseudo historical research and his robotic nurse Dolly.
Sudhanva Deshpande’s moving account in English of the death and life of Safdar Hashmi, artist, writer, poet, actor, activist, a man who endeared himself to everyone who met him.
In this enduring classic of Marathi literature by encyclopedist, sociologist and novelist, Dr S V Ketkar, a young woman dares to find an identity and love outside the shackles of class and patriarchy.
Fifty-one hymns of Sant Tukaram translated in two voices, to give a rounded experience of his enduring poetry.
Twenty-one long and short stories some in English, some translated from other Indian languages, all located in a city of multiple realities, opportunities and dreams.
One full-length play and four monologues by Shanta Gokhale, which address the painful moral issues of the present age.
