There are actors few and far between who have been able to juggle both parallel cinema and commercial pot-boilers with equal ease. Among them Kulbhushan Kharbanda is definitely one. For this 68-year-old actor has played both sides of the story as an adept performer.
But it isn’t feasible to measure this veteran’s acting prowess with his filmography alone. For he returns like a native to his first love called, stage-histrionics. Early this week, the actor was in Kolkata to revisit his good old glory as a theatre actor and reinstate his status in front of a live, captive audience in the gallery.
Kharbanda rejoins the fold of Kolkata’s reputed drama troupe Padatik, to tell the lifestory of an ageing writer Rajadhyaksh, thus narrating the tale to a researching student in the process. Titled Atmakatha, which means autobiography in English, the play turns a simple narrative of a rift between a husband and wife into a soul-searching journey. Describing his character as a complicated bundle, layered with innumerable shades, Kharbanda confirms to have enjoyed his tryst with theatre almost after a long gap of two decades.
Looking frail and a bit fatigued during the media question-hour, the actor suddenly throbbed with energy and enthusiasm when asked to enact an important scene alongside Chetna Jalan, another stage exponent, an ace Kathak dancer and wife of late Shyamananda Jalan, the founder of Padatik and a noted theatre practitioner of his times.
Albeit, he doesn’t clearly remember the name of the last English play which he saw of late or his birth-place Hasan Abdal, a historic town in Northern Punjab (now in Pakistan) that he left long behind in his infancy, yet the thespian retains each and every word of his dialogues on the edge of his tongue.
A well-made production by Padatik and Rikh, Atmakatha unfurls the story of a famous writer embarking on his autobiography, only to discover in the process that all characters in his life have their own views and perspectives of truth, thus making a reconstruction of even one life impossible and the whole concept of truth, nebulous. The play comprises of four characters: the author and the three women in his life namely, his wife, sister-in-law and a scribe, whose insistent exploration into his past digs up the lies, ego-hassles and self-centredness which he used as weapons to assail his near and dear ones, even as he doggedly pursued his profession with a single-minded focus. The apparently simple saga unmasks the flaws of the artistic conscience and the ethical question of individuals, thereby sacrificing personal integrity for creative, yet selfish goals.
Kharbanda’s association with Padatik is nothing new. In fact, he had earlier collaborated with the group in the early 1990s in its well-known theatre production Sakharam Binder, penned by one of the most distinguished Indian dramatists, Vijay Tendulkar.
Sakharam has completed 25 years but the piece proved to be so controversial that the concerned authorities of many of popular city auditoriums back then in Kolkata had warned its makers to stop its staging, despite registering full-house shows and high ticket-sales.
So is it after 20 years that the man is back to where his heart is? “Precisely so. I think my last play was staged in 1991,” insists Kharbanda. Having initiated his career working with the Delhi-based theatre group Yatrik Sangstha in the 1960s, Kharbanda formed his own troupe, Abhigyan. And afterwards, shifted to Mumbai to find his footing in the Bollywood industry. “Can anybody mint money out of theatre? And moreover, I had to keep my kitchen-fire burning. Well, movies did help me earn my daily living,” he says matter-of-factly. But he is also happy to see the increasing number of audience-footfall for the one-wall medium. “Stage has its own nasha (charm) you see. But am quite lazy and dishonest as a person to pull up my socks for either direction or scriptwriting. I find it difficult to multi-task and hold numerous reins at the same time,” he candidly confesses.
Originally written by eminent playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar way back in the 1980s in Marathi and later on translated as well as rendered in Bengali, Atmakatha recently made its Hindi debut at Kolkata’s Gyan Manch with four consecutive evening shows. Good news is that the culture-capital’s theatre-lovers did grab the first opportunity to witness Kharbanda essaying the key male protagonist of the play. The ensemble cast also includes other talented artistes like Sanchayita Bhattacharjee Alam and Anubha Fatehpuria apart the lead-duo, Kharbanda and Chetna Jalan.
Helmed and designed by Vinay Sharma, the director speaks about the two-hour-long Hindi production: “The fact that the play is rich in emotional and intellectual content was enough for me to lend my instant nod for its direction. Besides, the script has been adroitly written and throws a host of structural challenges to the respective director to tackle with, which is a good exercise anyway,” he said.
The play unravels a plethora of diverse perspectives of truth. “The spectators must observe the play with a focused mind to find out what is hidden inside and then try and understand the nitty-gritty of the truth which finally prevails. See, the content always attracts me. And Atmakatha is no different. I said yes from the word go as the script itself has absorbed my mind from the first line itself. The play in fact questions the validity of one man’s truth which is also another man’s fiction. It abounds in complex human relationships and delves into a deep sea of emotions,” insists the director.
With strong emotional undercurrents and subtle histrionics dominating the entire expanse of the drama, it shows an ageing writer dictating his own memoirs to a young research student.
And during the course of that, the past starts unwrapping page by page.
Defining the play as a true-to-life piece, Chetna Jalan vouches for the play’s integrity to side with reality.
“It’s not for nothing that the play finds a special place in my heart and attracts me to the core, tremendously. It endeavours to excavate the truth buried down under a heap of lies and guides the audience to find the right route to detect the answers of confusing questions which both characters on stage and the darkened heads in the auditorium are groping for. Both truth and the reasons behind its lost-and-found trail are revealed in the end. So there’s no room for doubt or dilemma on either side of the stage,” explains Jalan.