At the Department of Indian Theatre, the stage is always set for creative actsYear after year, the talented few take their first step towards Act One, on the wooden stage of the Department of Indian Theatre, Panjab University. Here, dreams are nurtured, creativity chiselled and love for theatre given movement and motivation. Here, there is scope for drama and ingenuity. It is a place where there is no method to the madness. Just passion, pure passion for theatre is the rule and exception. It began with one man’s dream to nurture talent in this part of the country and give those with a fire in their bellies and a vision in their eyes to become complete theatre-persons, an opportunity at par with the best in the country. “We owe it all to the vision of Balwant Gargi,” chairperson of the department and Sangeet Natak Akademi award winner Prof (Dr) Mahendra Kumar looks back with pride and fondness. Kumar has seen the department since the first session in 1972 and has numerous dramatic stories to narrate. “I have been here since 1969, before the department came into being. It all began when Balwant Gargi came here to stage a play and proposed a department of theatre to the then vice-chancellor, Suraj Bhan, who immediately invited him to be a part and initiator of it,” says Kumar, who was then a student at the Government College of Arts. After returning from the US, it was Gargi’s first job, and he chose to stay on the campus and began scouting for talent from various departments of the university to stage a play, Gagan Main Thal. The search for an art director, a field which was given top priority by Gargi in his plays, led him to the Arts College and then to Kumar, who had keen interest in literature and was a fabulous painter with a splendid sense of design. And so started an association which was to go a long way and result in establishment of a department, which is now a name to reckon with, having produced actors like Anupam and Kirron Kher, Mangal Dhillon, Meeta Vashisht, Navneet Nishaan, Anita Kanwar and also Harry Baweja, Amrik Gill, Rani Balbir Kaur, Channi, Umesh Kant to name a few. Gargi infused life and art into an empty, deserted, but aesthetic building, which already had an open-air theatre and it was Kumar who designed each nook and corner, chairs, tables, green rooms and studio theatre of the department. “The vision and imagination was all Gargi’s,” Kumar puts it modestly. The small studio theatre, which had a wooden floor and was designed in such a way that audiences could sit on three sides, was the place for the first rehearsal, performance, research and many a heart-to-heart. And artistes like Karanth, Bansi Kaul, Elkazi, Raina came to the department on the invitation of Gargi to teach and share their experience and talent. “Theatre came to Chandigarh with this department, with top theatre directors of the country choosing to stage their best productions here. After establishing and actively being part of the department, Gargi retired in 1977 and here we are, keeping his dreams alive and giving many the opportunity to understand and live this complete art — theatre,” Kumar looks ahead. Yes, the show must go on.
