Urban architecture reflects the cultural landscape of the time it exists in and so for every multiplex that you run into in a city, there is no corresponding structure meant for a theatre performance, a dance recital, a concert.
Think of a definitive theatre space in India and you will think of Mumbai’s Prithvi theatre and Bangalore’s Ranga Shankara. No theatre space can ever be built with commercial considerations in mind or without love. The story of Ranga Shankara is no different. Around 2000, the media was invited to a ground breaking ceremony by the wife of late screen legend Shankar Nag (who died in a tragic car crash) in a leafy, quiet locality called JP Nagar.
It had been Nag’s unfulfilled dream to create a space for exponents and lovers of theatre and his wife was determined to see it through. Arundhati had no reason to believe that the broken ground would ever have a structure. The dream was entrusted to architect Sharukh Mistry, already famous for his unconventional organic designs but without enough funds, would the small scale model on the site ever become a living reality?
But Arundhati said, “It will be done. I don’t know how but it will be done.’’
Sharukh told this writer, many years after the ceremony, “Anyone with a little business sense would have given up on it. But the team who did it stuck together through lack of money, through thick and thin with the hope that if not today, then tomorrow or 10 years later, the project would be finished. It was made with little money but great intent.’’
Arundhati would carry the model of Ranga Shankara in her car everywhere, and show it to anyone who she thought could contribute. She said, “There was not a single moment of dissolution. I never thought that it could not be done. It was as if life chose me to do this.’’
When the building was finished, it was clear why, architecturally, it was not just a tribute to Shankar Nag but also to theatre because it was (according to Arundhati) the second theatre space in India (the first being Prithvi) where 50 per cent of the theatre space is meant for the artists, be it stage or the greenrooms.
Theatre doyens and filmmakers directed a lot of the design inputs as they knew what performers require from the space they perform in. The space was designed around the idea of openness and till date it has no main door protecting it from visitors. It is like Shankar Nag. Open hearted and hospitable. The shell is circular as if to remind one that all things do come full circle in life. A staircase takes you towards the auditorium where sweeping seats in a rising semi-circle face a wooden stage. Ranga Shankara can easily seat 300 people and can squeeze in even those who do not mind sitting in the aisles and on steps. The design is fluid and wraps itself around the lobby, an open cafe, a book shop, workshop spaces, green rooms, wash rooms, corridors with exhibition walls and yes, the performance space that has hosted thousands of performers from all over the world.
The rock from her farmhouse, which Arundhati took to the ground breaking ceremony, stands at the entrance.
“It was too big a dream and we did not have all the money we needed. We raised the money as we built!’’ Arundhati recalled. Big and small contributions like floor tiles, cement bags, elevators, hand painted steel almirahs, computers for the office were made by corporates and ordinary people.
There was no money to create acoustic facilities after the structure was made so the acoustics were woven within the structure. A lot of intuitive things had to be done to make up for the lack of money. Like the brick walls which were left exposed within the auditorium and the way the walls were edged, the way the roof panels came down, the sound absorbency levels of the seats, everything was constructed to generate naturally powerful acoustics. In fact, when it was all done, the team dropped a coin on the stage to see if the sound would carry to the last seat in the last row! It did!
It is hard to not be a little moved when you enter the lobby and see a window pane embossed with Nag’s image. His arms are open, as if welcoming whoever steps in. And you see the reflection of each visitor mirrored in his embrace.
Ranga Shankara is not just an architectural space because tremendously emotive things were tied to the project.
Like Sharukh said, “The excitement and the energy generated by people before and after a show, that is what makes Ranga Shankara what it is. That is what the design set out to achieve.’’
(Reema Moudgil is the author of Perfect Eight, editor of unboxedwriters.com and an RJ)