BANGALORE: When the granddaddy of advertising talks, his effervescent spirit bubbles over like a bottle of vintage champagne. But the older he gets, the younger he feels. Ask him his age and a mischievous grin makes happy creases around his pepper grey beard. “I’m as old as I feel. I’ve always felt like I was in college,” he winks. Alyque Padamsee astutely states that he hates the word ‘jaded.’ “Maybe that’s why I married three times,” he quips. And for the guru of Indian ad filmmaking, who was back on stage with The Game after an acting sabbatical of 25 years, a play that openly scrutinises the issues of old age was just what he was looking for.
The Game that was staged in Bangalore on Saturday at Vivanta by Taj saw him share the spotlight with Sabira Merchant, where they played two old Parsi people brought together when circumstances direct its fingers to a nursing home. “The last time I acted on stage was in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. That was 25 years ago. My daughter, Raell, who produced The Game convinced me to get back to acting,” says Alyque, who kept himself busy with stage direction all these years.
The man who played the role of Jinnah in Richard Attenborourgh’s Gandhi says that when acting in a Raell Padamsee production, the actor has to focus only on the acting. “She’s a very good doctor fix-it. She takes care of everything else,” he says. When Alyque talks about his children, one cannot help notice the man cringe a little bit. “I had three marriages. I don’t think I gave enough time to my three children. In my book, I say that I have been a better godfather than a good father. But it’s good to see my three children doing well. Quasar is busy with theatre and Shazahn is happy that she’s found a profession in movies,” says Alyque, who shot many men to fame, thanks to his perfect stage directions. “I think I’m still a mentor to Kabir Bedi, Shyam Benegal and Shiamak Davar,” he adds.
Nostalgia overpowers him as he talks about the first play he directed — The Taming of the Shrew — when he was in college. “It was in 1954. I went on to marry the leading lady of the play. And I went on to repeat it two more times,” says Alyque, who’s former wives and present wife are into performing arts. “Theatre and life are intermingled. It’s a wavy line that divides it. It overlaps most of the time. Sometimes it annoys me,” he says. But according to him, we all play different roles in life, without even realising it. “Sometimes, you are a father, sometimes, a husband, sometimes, a son,” he says. We are constantly on a journey of discovery, he observes.
And what is ‘he’ yet to discover? “Why people are frightened of death,” comes the reply. “I have no religion. I decided at 18 that I didn’t like my father’s religion. I don’t believe in forced religions. But I do believe that there is a supreme being. And as far as I am concerned, when I die, I return to dust. And in my will I’ve written that my body parts, whatever is functioning, are to be donated to JJ Hospital. This heaven and hell business is the biggest myth ever,” he signs off.
elizabeth@exressbuzz.com