CHENNAI: An integration of a deep interest in theatre and heritage made Karthik Bhatt begin a blog in English to document Tamil theatre. A Gujarati born and raised in Chennai, chartered accountant Bhatt’s tryst with Tamil language and theatre had begun when he was in school. Now, part of three theatre groups, Chennai Drama House, Dummies Drama and Shraddha, it was only natural that his other interest —researching on heritage — and theatre spawned the blog.
“There are very good memoirs that document the theatre of the 1930s and ‘40s. Some of them are Pammal Sambandha Mudaliar’s autobiography Nataka Medai Ninaivugal, T K Shanmugam’s Enadhu Nataka Vaazhkai, S V Sahasranamam’s Thirumbiparkiren and V K Ramasamy’s Enadhu Kalai Payanam. There is a work called Stigmas of the Tamil Stage written by Suzan Seizer — a kind of an ethnographic study of a form of Tamil theatre called special drama. Except for this one, there is very little in English to document it,” he says.
So far, his blog entries have covered names like Mudaliar, Shanmugam and Sahasranamam, discussing the life and times of prolific theatre names. “However, I am not just going to stick to profiles. I aim to talk about some reviews or other details about the making of some milestone theatre productions. The next post will be on Ku Sa Krishnamurthy, whose work Andaman Kaidhi was later made into movie with MGR playing the lead,” he gives us a teaser.
With the Tamil-speaking population that cannot read the language as his focus group, he, however, adds that he doesn’t aim to draw more people to Tamil theatre. “I want to tell people, here is an art form that shaped Tamil Nadu and politics. It has contributed so much and you need to be aware of it. It shouldn’t go uncelebrated,” he tells us with gusto.
Opening up a treasure trove of information, Bhatt talks about a few names which have faded into oblivion in the course of time. “There was a theatre artiste called S S Viswantha Das, a Gandhian from Tirumangalam in Madurai. In the late 19th century, he was one of the earliest people to use theatre as a medium to gain support for freedom movement. But today, very few even in the theatre circle know about him,” he says.
Bhatt says that there is a lesson or two to learn from these Tamil theatre groups. “It is a big lesson on management. It is mind-boggling to see how they survived despite all odds and achieved so much,” he adds.
Karthik Bhatt blogs on Tamil theatre at tamilstage.wordpress.com