Celebrating Ramkinkar Baij

The third memorial lecture of the doyen and wizard of sculpturer Ramkinkar Baij was delivered by Arundhati Nag in Hyderabad at Patodia Auditorium, LV Prasad Eye Institute recently. Instituted by Musui Foundation (spearheaded by sculptor KS Radhakrishnan, the last student of Baij at Santiniketan) the earlier lectures were delivered by Prof KG Subrahmanyam and Prof BN Goswamy. A Films Division documentary on Baij was screened on this occasion.

Nag is well known for single-handedly setting up Ranga Shankara – a theatre in Bengaluru 12 years ago, which has so far seen 4,500 performances. Her theme for the Ramkinkar Baij memorial lecture was “Drama in Ramkinkar Baij’s works”.

In the first part of her lecture she recalled her journey in theatre from her middle class upbringing in the cities of New Delhi and Mumbai and joining IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association) propelled by the magic of theatre. She emphasised how theatre drew her into its vortex at the age of 15.

She was able to work with great artistes like Kaifi Azmi, Shaukat Kaifi, Balraj Sahni and AK Hangal from her teens! “The magic of being somebody else swept me of my feet!” She did plays in languages like Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and “in season time did even 42 plays a month!”

She mentioned how she grew in theatre learning how not to crowd the picture and retain the objectivity. She also said how one had to do big gestures in theatre and despite working with David Lean and her husband Shankar Nag on Malgudi Days she was a novice in cinema.

She drew attention to the fact that when she was acting in the Hindi film Paa she was told by Amitabh Bachchan not to waste energy as the camera was still not on (which was just the opposite of what they did in theatre – had to do big gestures as they had to reach the last row).

In the second half of her talk she said how she was amazed to see the sculpture of the Santhal family when she was walking in Santiniketan. “I was shaken by the completeness of this sculpture – this was joy of living, celebration of the moment.”

“Ramkinkar has not got his due and Radhakrishnan worked hard to give Ramkinkar his place in history (a retrospective exhibition on Ramkinkar was curated by Radhakrishnan with publications)! After seeing all the other creations of Ramkinkar she realised he was not tied down to one style.

Therein she linked it to how Indian theatre also is not bound by one style and how it is challenging audiences. To exemplify this point Arundhati showcased five-minute clippings from various plays – one of Ganapathi by a group from Pondicherry (where the birth is described by a French musician playing the saxophone and an Indian playing the mizhavu),

Maya Bazar of Surabhi (a 125-year-old group which has 60 members performing mythological themes – which is a repository of a certain style of theatre) and Piya Bahurupia - Shakespeare’s As You Like It performed in Nautanki style.

They were indeed interesting to view and one felt like seeing more of them. The highlight was a short performance by Arundhati of Girish Karnad’s Bhikre Bhimb!