Born and brought up in the Kashmir
valley, Bansi Kaul wanted to become a painter. However, with his joining the
National School of Drama in the early 70’s he was groomed to be a dramatist under
the tutelage of Ebrahim Alkazi, the doyen of Indian theatre. He started his career with NSD’s Repertory
Company and was also in the faculty of the school for many years, before
starting his own theatre group in 1984. Kaul was a director of Hindi theatre
and the founder of Rang Vidushak, a theatre group and institute based in Bhopal. He did
classics and modern plays, Indian and Western, and with equal ease in Punjabi,
Tamil, and even Sinhalese. He served as artistic director of Shri Ram Centre,
1981-2. He also composed music for some of his own productions.
Kaul would always say:-
“For the
stage artist, the Proscenium Barrier (in theatre the arch separating the stage
from the auditorium, through which the action of a play is
viewed) must be broken in the mind first, rather than the body. The idea
of breaking down one’s mental fourth wall is what draws the audience into the performance. As a result, a bond is formed between the
performers and the audience. Using movements and gestures, the actors must be
able to cut through the space of the performance to create the space of the
theatre.”
He excelled in the field of direction, and music,
though designing remained his first love. A brilliant
stage designer and a theatre director known for evolving a new idiom of clown
theatre, Bansi Kaul took the road less travelled. Unlike the other theatre giants
who rose and shone in Delhi, Kaul called Bhopal his Karam-Bhoomi. Modernity to him meant
reinventing.
He did not believe in picking up a form and 'imposing it on urban theatre.'When a modern man creates
something, he said, he goes back to his past with consciousness. You see much
more in your childhood now than you had seen in it earlier. You can so redefine
a 'traditional' form, it is reborn to you.
What he did at Rang Vidushak was to go back to non-theatre forms and
give them recognition.
Kaul directed and produced over
100 plays throughout his career, with some of his notable plays including Aala Afsar based on Nikolai
Gogol's satirical
play The Government Inspector, Kahan
Kabir based on the collected works of poet-saint Kabir, and Sidhi Dar Sidhi urf Tukke pe Tukka an adaptation of Chinese
folktale "Three promotions in succession". Most of his plays were based on the Nautanki style of street theatre. Other notable
works included Mrichakatikam,
Raja Agnivarna ka Pair, Agnileek, Veini Samhaar, Dashkumar Charitham, Sharvilk,
Pancharathram, Andha Yug, Khel Guru Ka, Jo Ram Rachi Raakha, Aranyadhipathi
Tantyamaama, Zindagi aur Zyonk, Vatan ka Raag, and Saudagar. He would always
say:-
“Theatre should entertain, it should not confine itself to
smaller issues. It must have the capacity to confront human agonies. Do not try
to get from theatre what you want to achieve from a poster. Theatre is not
slogan-mongering. It must analyze society. It should leave a visual impact.”
A Padma Shri (2014) and Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee (1995),
Kaul was the designer and show director for the Commonwealth Games opening
ceremony (2010) and art director for the Khajuraho Festival (1986 and 1987). He was also the recipient of the 2016 Rashtriya Kalidas Samman for Kahan Kabir. He received the
1994 Shikhar Samman from the Government of Madhya Pradesh, and the 1995 Safdar Hashmi Award
from the Uttar Pradesh
Sangeet Natak Akademi.
His contribution to Indian theatre can be summed up under various
broader segments as under: -
DEVELOPMENT OF COMEDY THEATRE
“Laughter celebrates the minuscule cosmic interval between birth and
death. In laughter, I see celebration and protest at once. It becomes a force to
cut through every form of negativity. Therefore, laughter must be celebrated!
“…. Bansi Kaul
Rang Vidushak was born in 1984 from the ideas of Bansi Kaul
and his team of artists. They were dedicated to developing another form of art
where laughter was the new celebrative language. The vidushak, the fool or
jester, ruled. His wit flowed from folk and tribal expression, rituals, song,
myth and folklore, games, jokes and riddles. Kaul, the group's
designer-director, has documented the acrobatic, storytelling, and martial art
forms of the Hindi belt in developing an actor-training methodology applicable
to Vidushak theatre. He studied the skills of acrobats, jugglers and hawkers, storytellers and jokers, and even fishermen and
beggars, employed. He had incidentally lived with acrobats for three years. He
brought street clowns and their laughter to the centre stage.
For many years, Bansi Kaul single-mindedly
worked for the establishment of a resource centre for comedy theatre. He had
been striving hard to start a “Repertory
of Clowns” as he always felt that performances of such satirical humour
would cure lots of ills in society. He strongly believed that through Naqqal.
Amli, Bhaand and Narrative Singing, India has a strong tradition of comedy;
however, these were not developed and fell prey to feudal obscenity. He would always explain the importance of laughter in
the formation of his group 'Rang Vidushak' in Bhopal. Followed by a combination
of his workshops and major plays like - Kahan Kabir, Wo jo aksar jhapad khata
hai, Neeti Manikaran ki, Hasyarasayan, Gadho ka Mela, Ritu Gurjari, Darji
ki Anokhee Biwi, Saudagar, Sidhi Dar Sidhi urf Tukke par Tukka, Deputy Collector,
Zindagi aur Jonk, equally important is his works with children, police, prisoners.
Through his works, he explored the politics of laughter and studied
riddles and myths across Indian traditional folk tales, including clowns,
or Vidushak, into the central figure of his works.
In an Interview with Shamsul Islam of The Pioneer, Kaul
has said this:-
“Unfortunately in our
country, no work has been done in the field of comedy theatre. The laughter
which is a basic instinct of human life is non-existent or suppressed. I firmly
believe that only that society can face the worst crisis of life and death and
survive which does not lose sight of humour, satire and inherent liveliness.
Due to the repressive feudal environment all around, humour/satire was always
forbidden. In the name of comedy what was practised was vulgarization, which
suited the rulers well. Where other Afro-Asian countries have strong traditions
of mental humour, we have none. From China to Turkey we find a character, Mulla
Nasruddin. He is a commoner, a simpleton who not only exposes the feudal
dehumanisation and religious fundamentalism of the ruling classes but also
pricks the backwardness, hypocrisy and degeneration of common people. The
stories of Mulla Nasruddin, not only greatly entertain but also have morals in
them.”
Eminent
theatre person GS Channi recalls this:-
“He was three years senior to me in NSD;
we would call him Bansi da. He specialised in stagecraft. His contribution
towards vidushak (clown tradition) is tremendous. Bansi da worked with people
on the sidelines and yet managed to be a national figure. Whatever he touched
was transformed.”
Ariana Ross, CEO of Story
Tapestries Inc. has this to say about Bansi Kaul:-
“It is through the laughter and tears of our tales that the
lessons of life are learned.” For nearly three years I studied and performed
with Bansi Kaul and his troupe Rang Vidushak in India. Bansi Kaul’s plays wove
together music, dance, acrobatics, and laughter. He used traditional tales and
historical facts merged with political issues to highlight who and what needed
to change for people to work together and rise above their circumstances. I
witnessed how to craft powerful stories that create the space for people to
listen, laugh and cry – all at the same time. Through that experience I
learned about inequities and discovered the power of the arts, and humour, to
act as a catalyst for change.”
A MASTER OF STAGECRAFT
He
was a master in any segment of stagecraft; be it
scenic design, stage
machinery, lighting,
sound, costume design or makeup. He introduced fresh concepts in stagecraft. He was
conscious of the fact that theatre in India has benefited from a dominant religion
(Hinduism) that encouraged it through staging of Ramayana, Mahabharata and even
ritual performances. He was a master in planning the internal architecture of a
theatre, auditorium, audience space and the stage
consisting of a performing area and backstage. He also did innovations for open-stage performances. He made innovations in the use of music to carry forward
the story and assist performers. Techniques of Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Russian, Singaporean and many other countries
were introduced and amalgamated into stagecraft by him. This author was told
that one could discuss anything about stagecraft as enumerated in Bharat Muni’s
Natya Shastra with Bansi Kaul. His stage set design would produce maximum impact within minimum means. Through the
beautiful inclusion and blending of Indian architecture and painting in his
work, he created a new idiom for the stagecraft.
Building on his training in
stagecraft, he worked as the art director for the 1986 and 1987 Khajuraho Festival
and also for the Festival
of India in
China, Switzerland, and the USSR. He was one of the lead designers and an
associate show director for the 2010
Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. Speaking about his mandate, he would say that the
requirement was to bring Indian culture and themes to the event, without
letting Bollywood come across as the "only cultural identity of
the country. Theatre personality Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry says this about
the magical stagecraft of Bansi Kaul:-
“I worked with him during my days in Bhopal.
Once I was doing a folk tale and somehow the stage setting was not to my
liking; I told him that it did not seem coherent and he said, Abhi baandh dete
hain. I thought he was kidding. But, lo and behold, he asked for a rope and
managed it all.”
In a
review of a retrospective of his works Rang-Bansi (Colors of Bansi), newspaper The Hindu wrote
this:-
, "As a designer, he (Kaul) treads two worlds
– the designer of mega-events with plenty of resources and the designer of the
theatrical productions suffering from utter paucity of funds." And he
excelled in both jobs."
SANSKRIT PLAYS
In India, early theatre was intertwined with
Hinduism and Buddhism, the two major religions of the subcontinent at the start
of the Common Era. Sanskrit theatre was
popular in India from around the first century AD through the 1400s. Like both Greek drama and
Shakespearean drama, the productions required minimal sets and props, often
relying on pantomime to mimic things that were not actually on stage. The
productions were well-wrought, often including stage technicians, costumers,
makeup artists, and conductors, as well as a director, the sutradhara, who
would introduce the play at the beginning.
Most Sanskrit dramas could be expected to have certain types of characters,
including the noble hero, or nayaka, whose adventures the audience followed.
His love interest, the nayika, was a major character, as was the jester or
clown figure, the vidushaka.
Bharata's Natyashrasta carefully
laid out the conventions and characteristics of drama, as well as the concept
of Rasa, which explained how elements of a dramatic work played
together and elicited a response in the audience. Rasa operated on the
principle that certain elements, character types, and plot conventions could
elicit certain predictable responses and interpretations. These interpretations
could be experienced by the audience and explained. Bharata likened the
dramatist to a chef, where a knowledge of the ingredients and flavour patterns
could be inferred and understood by both the creator and the person eating the
food. Sanskrit playwrights, by manipulating these elements, could achieve their
desired effects.
Tragedy is forbidden in Sanskrit drama.
Except for a very few plays, almost three hundred or so plays have ended on a happy
note with conflicts being resolved. Even a play like Bhasa’s Urubhangam which
concludes with the sad demise of the protagonist, does not advocate any cynical
worldview as is seen often in Greek tragedy. Sanskrit drama regards existence
as orderly and predictable. Conflicts in the plays occur only when the order of
life is disrupted by individuals and finally, such attempts are redirected
in order to ensure that the characters take their ordained places and peace is
restored. Inspite of its great and glorious tradition, Sanskrit theatre was put
on the back burner as Muslim rulers came into power in India. The Muslim rulers
were more in favour of dance and music and thus started the deterioration of
this classical form of Indian Theatre.
Bansi Kaul has done tremendous work in producing ancient Sanskrit
plays in different Indian languages. “I resort to Sanskrit classics because
these plays are a powerful indictment against religious hypocrisy,
totalitarianism and social injustice. Today Sanskrit language may be a tool in
the hands of Brahminism but in history, Sanskrit literature always had a great
legacy of challenging whatever was unjust. It made fun of kings, even gods.
Kalidas is a great pro-woman playwright, and had the guts even to deny the
occurrence of Mahabharata in his play Panchratram.” He feels sorry for those
who treat Sanskrit as part of some religious heritage since it suits
fundamentalism. While referring to the great revolutionary content of ancient
Sanskrit- drama and literature he reminds one that Brecht borrowed immensely
from ancient Sanskrit classics.
SOME EXPERIMENTAL PLAYS
The list could be long but let us
focus on some major plays directed by Kaul. Tripurai Sharma’s play ‘Bargad’ was directed by Kaul for the Sri Ram Centre Theatre Repertory. He turned it into a musical play and described the production as a kind
of “musical realism”. Through this play, Kaul made the audience believe t that,
though life is cruel, it is naked but it is also beautiful. Poverty is bad
to look at yet poor people are beautiful. The play had immense humanism.
‘Qisse Soojh Boojh Ke’ ‘is another play worth mentioning over here. Staged
by Sanskar Rang Toli,
Kaul used wit as the strength of the play. In most of the productions of Kaul
one saw an elaborate design to provide authentic background for the action on
the stage. But in “Qisse Soojh-Boojh Ke” the action takes place on a bare stage
with the subtle and minute formations upstage on the screen which keeps on
changing with each scene to give an intricacy to the backdrop,
retaining the main focus on the action and performers.
He adapted from Gogol's ‘Inspector General’ in Nautanki style,
as a milestone production. His other major directorial works include Pinam tinnum satirangal i.e.
'Corpse-devouring Customs' in 1978. This was based on the story of Duryodhana
dishonouring Draupadi in Tamil, Mrinal
Pande's Hoihai wahijo Ram rachi rakha i.e. 'That Which Ram Hath Ordained' in
1981, and Rasiklal Parikh's Sharvilak in
1989 were also important. Kaul was the art director for B. V. Karanth's famous
Kannada film.
His last production,’Paglaye Gusse Ka Dhuan’ (about
the displacement communities go through under duress) in 2019 was for the Lucknow based Bhartendu Natya Akademi. The play
was based on the works of Kashmiri
poets and
addressed the topic of the Exile of Kashmiri Pandits during years of militancy in the state.
Two plays that earned him name and fame are,
‘Kahan Kabir’ (based
on the collected works of poet-saint Kabir)
and ‘Sidhi
Dar Sidhi urf Tukke pe Tukka’ (an adaptation of the Chinese
folktale "Three promotions in succession).
He learnt the basics of the
difficult but very significant tribal performance style after he directed Ek Gaon ki Bhali Aurat,
a Hindi adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's famous play,’ The Good Woman of Setzuan’.
The play received rave reviews in the print and electronic media.
HIS LAST LETTER TO FRIENDS AND WELLWISHERS
Bansi
Kaul was deeply disturbed by what his own community had to face in the Kashmir
valley. He brought the pain and suffering of his community indirectly in some
plays broadening the context for ipan India viewers. Kaul wrote an emotional goodbye to his
friends and loved ones just before his death thanking them profusely for all
the love and attention he received from them from time to time. Some paragraphs
from this letter are as under:-
My
very dearest friends!
(1)“My
best wishes and love to all of you… to all those performers from across the
country who have the cultural events I designed the most amazing spectacles…
and to every person I have met on this journey called life. I have not been
able to thank all of you for your good wishes on my birthday. I have been unwell and have been diagnosed with
cancer of the brain as well as the lungs. Yet I am sure I will pull through and
that we will soon meet again. “
(2)
“We are in times
where displacements are the rule… displacements from physical spaces, nature,
and natural sounds, from cultures, from one’s own family and friends. Scenes of
daughters and sons carrying their aged parents across the country to a safer
place during the lockdown, and children falling asleep on suitcases being
rolled along are etched in my mind. All these painful experiences must be
stopped. This can happen only when there is a sense of general
well-being. Lal Ded says:-
“In the midst of
the sea, with unspun thread, I am towing the boat; would that God grant my
prayer and, ferry me too, across…”.
(Lal Vakh. No. 23)
We
all need to hold a single rope to tow the boat of goodness, peace, mental and
physical well-being, gratitude, kindness, and magnanimity across the sea of
life.
So,
dear friends… killing, hating, plundering, and cheating… all in the name of
belief and faith will bring nothing. All of us must love each other, which can
happen only if you get rid of hatred. The act of throwing a stone of hatred at
someone has its repercussions. It will rebound. The hurt ultimately comes to
oneself.
(3)
“And so, we must
make more and more friends to make the world a better place to live in. We need
to pave a strong, durable long-lasting path for the coming generations. Let’s
give them a better world. When we say we are 60% young India, let us not forget
that after twenty years or so there will be a 100% old India! We must start
thinking about this… and think fast. There must be a sense of collective
strength. Strength can only be in togetherness, and in togetherness there are
memories.”
Kaul was married to
theatre artist Dr Anjana Puri. Dr.
Anjana Puri is an exponent of Theatre Music and is a teacher and music composer
at Rang Vidushak, Bhopal. She received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2016.
She has composed music for around 40 plays with eminent theatre directors such
as Bansi Kaul, B. Jayashree, K.S. Rajendran, and Tripurari Sharma, among
others.
Bansi
Kaul lost his battle against cancer and breathed his last on 6 February 2021, in
Delhi. The untimely and sad departing of Kaul left many of his admirers in the gloom. He was 71. He was a simple man, affectionate and helpful to one and
all. He had many productive years ahead. According to Bansi Kaul, human issues
in this world revolve around Food, Love,
Beauty and Freedom. Kurdish poet Sherko Bekas also believed so. One can feel
this in his poem ‘Separation’.
(Separation)
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( Benares Ghaat by Walter Langhammer)
( Still Life by Walter Langhammer )
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( Kashmir Landscape by Walter Langhammer)
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( Portrait of S A Raza by Walter Langhammer )
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( Nashik Dhobi Ghaat by Walter Langhammer)
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( Portrait of N S Bendre by Walter Langhammer)
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