From the very first chapter, Feisal Alkazi draws us into his family and its extended circle, the home they inhabited, making us privy to their interactions, giving us glimpses of their personalities, at times even the peculiar habits that make some families unique, as his was. Starting with a recreation of life around a horseshoe-shaped table, Alkazi’s memoir takes us through generations of relatives from both the Alkazi and Padamsee sides of the family, to weave together what can almost unequivocally be called a ready reckoner for those looking for a quick history of English theatre in India.
So we start by watching Ebrahim Alkazi and a group of his college friends sitting around the horseshoe table, discussing how best they could convert Oscar Wilde’s ‘salacious’ play Salome into a memorable performance. We catch the infective enthusiasm of the group as they look for a performance space, after St Xavier’s College refuses permission for its performance. Alkazi spends an entire chapter detailing his uncle Sultan’s—Bobby as he was fondly called—achievements, through to his audaciously creative stint as the founder of the Theatre Group in the 1940s and director of plays that benchmarked theatre in then-Bombay.
We are charmed, mesmerised and later saddened by the turn Sultan’s life takes... but realise we have witnessed the unfolding of the first chapter of the history of English theatre that would come into its own in Independant India. And we watch the romance unfold between the author’s parents. He, Ebrahim, an ‘intense, young Arab with a mellifluous voice’, just past 18, she, Roshen, ‘young, pert pretty’. We meet Kulsumbai of Kulsum Terrace, Roshan’s mother and the author’s grandmother. Alkazi paints a detailed picture of this formidable matriarch, who used the affluence she was born and married into to educate her children in elite schools. He works the contrast of his father’s humbler upbringing to create drama.
Anyone who has worked in English theatre in Mumbai and has been touched by the Padamsee wand, will experience a strong sense of déja vu, as Kulsum Terrace, with its sofas and arm chairs, its Persian carpets and the slow, open lift that rises like an archaic time machine, comes alive in tender detail.It is not long before the stage Alkazi has set in the pages of his book is peopled by giants. We meet Alyque and Pearl Padamsee, both of whom created history in the city’s theatre scene. Through them we meet the likes of Sabira Merchant and Sharon Prabhakar. And as he details his father’s role as Head of the National School of Drama, Delhi, Alkazi introduces us to the many greats who were his protégés—Om Shivpuri, Rohini Hattangadi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Urmila Baokar...
Alkazi spends a substantial part of the book talking about plays put up by his father and by Alyque Padamsee; his own work modestly taking a back seat. The scope of the book doesn’t allow critical details about the plays, some of which were path-breaking, but he manages to squeeze enough to inform about their importance in theatre history.All in all an easy, happy book, that, in these times of solitary living, glows like a rosy fire on a cold, windy day. It warms the cockles of the reader’s heart.