Satyadev Dubey (1936-2011)
Pandit Satyadev Dubey passed away quietly on Saturday morning in a hospital room — an unusual exit for a fire cracker of a man.
I never really knew the real genius that was Dubeyji. By the time I began to work in theatre, he was already an ageing monarch; who held court at the Prithvi Café every evening for anyone who would listen.
Each day the menu was different — you could hear a draft for a new play, a review of the latest film, the next big idea in theatre, or even a rant about how you are f***ing up your artistic existence!
Dubeyji was not well liked. He never set out to be. He was often harshest on people who were closest to him. Many feared him, some perhaps disliked him. But everyone respected him.
To him nothing was sacred other than the work. He was rebellious often because he could be. Awards meant nothing. In fact an actor once found Dubeyji’s Sangeet Natak Award in the trash. If there was a rule, like Prithvi’s “Latecomers will only be permitted at Interval”; he twisted it — the first 15 minutes were often a preamble after which there was a five-minute interval, and only after that the main play would begin. This became affectionately known as the “fourth bell”.
To me Dubeyji’s plays were often esoteric, and sometimes full of “in jokes” that he’d penned while observing life from his perch in the Prithvi Café. But all his plays had one basic rule — the fundamentals were always strong. The use of space was always interesting, and every word was heard. Audibility of an actor was paramount to him. Often his reviews of plays would begin with, “I heard every word.”
Dubeyji was a taster. He tasted everything. Although his passion was theatre, he dabbled in television (Mouthful of Sky), film screenplays (Junoon, Arth, Mandi, etc.), and even politics! In 2004 he stood for the Lok Sabha elections as an Independent candidate under the symbol of a Batsman — an oblique reference to the REAL reason why he came to Bombay, to become a cricketer.
Dubeyji had an incisive and independent way of looking at the world and at texts. He didn’t really care if his work had an audience or not. This allowed him to be fearless in his artistic choices; in turn dazzling us or failing spectacularly. He gave our city the concept of “Experimental Theatre”. In his work he was always trying to push the boundaries. It is this passion that resulted in him discovering and presenting some of India’s greatest ever plays like Girish Karnad’s Yayati and Badal Sircar’s Ebong Indrajit. Mahesh Elkunchwar recalls how Dubeyji edited one of his plays in such an insightful way, that even though half of it was torn out, it made the play better.
While plays are transient, his real legacy is in the actors he trained and inspired. His presence lives on in the works of Naseeruddin Shah, Sunil Shanbag, the late Chetan Datar and a host of others.
Last evening at the Shivaji Park Crematorium, hundreds turned up to bid farewell to a true icon of this city. An immigrant who found his passion, toiled tirelessly at it, and crossed the impossible language barriers that our city is divided by. He worked in English, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati theatre with equal ease.
Dubeyji was not a family man. He has no heirs. His real family were the people who worked with him in his plays.
The various actors he has trained. The “strugglers” he has housed. The lives he has touched. And it was fitting that it was this family that took care of the last rites and various arrangements.
Wherever he is, Dubeyji is sipping his black coffee, bumming a cigarette and smiling at the irony that his funeral was a “House Full”.