INDRASHIS LAHIRI: A PLAYWRIGHT EXTRA ORDINEM

INDRASHIS LAHIRI: A PLAYWRIGHT EXTRA ORDINEM

[It has been more than a month that I have added anything in my Blog. I have not seen any theatres during this time as I have been occupied with some other very important personal matters that had to be attended urgently and this is taking a lot of my time. But today I came across a piece of news that has compelled me to document my thoughts about a dramatist who has contributed a great deal to the Bengali theatre in a way that can never be emulated by any other playwright. This is my tribute to Indrashis Lahiri, a brilliant dramatist of our time, who has expired after a multi-organ failure at the SSKM Hospital.]

Indrashis Lahiri was a dramatist who seemed to have that rare ability to pen dramas that did not attempt to override the intellectual threshold of the general viewers/readers in spite of dealing with very important and serious themes that identify with the urban to semi-urban middle-class to lower middle-class society.  Indrashis had been quite consistent in his writing of dramas but had become sporadic in the last few years, perhaps due to ill health. He had his own language with which he could communicate very strongly with his viewers/readers who in their turn were comfortable in reciprocating. But what made his plays successful as stage-productions was his deep sense of the theatrics and that helped the director to adapt his plays on to the stage. Two of his latest dramas were presented by two foremost groups of Kolkata. SEI SUMOULI, a very significant political drama based on the change of the political baton in West Bengal, was produced by Swapnasandhani ; and PINKI BULI, a semi-fantasy based on a story by Amar Mitra but written afresh, was produced by Sayak.   

It is sad that not many competent directors, and there are many in today’s Bengali theatre world, have tried him out. Meghnad Bhattacharya and his Sayak have had done a few of his works. He was awarded the prestigious Satyen Mitra Award for the best playwright for the year 2011 of Theatre Workshop. And I take pride in the fact that I was one of the judges for this award and have had the opportunity to honour this introvert, self-effacing giant of a playwright.

It is a sad day for Bengali theatre which has once again been impoverished after the deaths of Badal Sircar and Mohit Chatterjee.

6 February 2013