A Theater Director

Theatre has always held a strong fascination for me. Even the local Ram Lila’s done in the most amateur way possible in Modinanar – a small town where I grew up – used to entice me. School never really offered any opportunity for theater.

However, when I joined St. Stephen’s College, the first extra curricular activity was joining the college Dramatic Society and Shakespeare Society; both of which would regularly put up play’s. I distinctly remember working as a stage hand on a play directed by Kapil Sibal, who at that time had left college and was studying law. I was taught lights by Amit Khanna who later become the alternate face of Dev Anand’s “Navketan”. There were many others who took up films as a career like Bharat Rangachary, Benjamin Gilani, Ketan Mehta, and more, but I joined the IAS.

Doing lights and directing was a full time hobby during my academics. With lots of play’s of Shakespeare and a mix of Hindi and English theatre – in retrospect I can say that theatre was important release for my creativity and artistic inclinations which made my education complete. With theatre, I was no longer known only for being academically brilliant and a university topper.

Ten years in to the IAS, leaving in Ahmedabad, Gujarat; one Sunday morning I got a call from Vijay Padake – then with ATIRA, asking me to join a group of people who had been active in theater earlier in their lives and would like to do something on similar lines again. So with Vijay and Barry Underwood – a trained theatre professional – “PlayCart” was formed somewhere in the summer of 1985.