By Satyen K. Bordoloi • May 24th, 2008 • Filed under: Highlights, Movies, Opinion, Thought, Tribute, features

Satyen K. Bordoloi remembers Vijay Tendulkar and his contributions to Indian literature, theatre, cinema and thinking

Vijay Tendulkar died on the 19th of May. Now you’d wonder how does that concern YOU. Afterall his first name was not Sachin, and neither is he any Shah Rukh Khan or Amitabh Bachchan or even Aishwarya Rai. How does the death of an octogenarian, obscure and not so famous playwright bother you, right? Wrong.

To begin with this demure man who wielded his pen like mighty warriors wielded swords, who used his mind to plot mazes of literary minefield full of truths for the discerning reader… this searcher for truth, has made a greater impact in your life than a million cricketers or actors put together. For while you have to bat for your stars, Vijay Tendulkar was a man who fought for you and your rights.

Yes he has won every award given by the government and private institutions to honour art, literature and cinema… including the Sangeet Natak Akademi, few Filmfares, Padma Bhushan and other state and national awards. Yes he is one of the most prolific playwrights of the country with some 30 land mark plays and another 30 plus one act plays. Yes, he was greatly responsible for the revival and sustenance of not only Marathi theatre, but Indian theatre. Yes his play ‘Ghasiram Kotwal’ has run for a record 1000 shows and over 3 decades. Yes he has been awarded and lauded by the entire world, including a special festival of his plays in New York. Yes, he has written screenplays to such masterpieces of World Cinemas as Nishant, Akrosh and Ardh Satya… yes, he has done that and much more. But if Ten (read Tae), as he was fondly called by friends, were alive, he’d agree with me, that these are mere details, statistics which are like “bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.”

Tendulkar was such a man, who like the ideal teacher for Gandhi, did not just preach lessons, but became the lesson himself. And that is where the greatest contribution of his lay. In the deletion of hypocrisy in his life. In the striving for ‘satyagraha’ - the steadfastness in truth, despite repeated failures. Purists may scoff at this comparison between Gandhian ideals and Ten, who was preoccupied with violence. But to me, there was no greater Gandhian than him, for he not only believed in truth, but lived by the truth, fought for truth and wrote the truth. And violence was the truth he discovered in the times and the society he lived in.

He admits to being shocked himself at the violence in his first play ‘Gidhade’ (vultures) and says in an revealing documentary ‘Tendulkar and Violence - Then and Now” by Atul Pathe produced by the California Art Association, “For three days and three nights the play consumed me. When I finished it, it was as if a raging fever had subsided. I couldn’t figure from where did this all come to me. I was a middle class man with its culture and security and yet I wrote that play.” And it shook his audience and the nation as much, a nation which was attuned to the messages of non-violence propagated by Gandhi. But it was the violence in life that shook Ten, for ‘Gidhade’ was based upon a true incident in his friends life.

The play was an instant hit, for nowhere had violence been so ruthlessly studied and portrayed in theatre. Critics pin the success of the play to its shock elements, admitting in the same breath that it somehow dimmed its central theme. This is a complaint that would stay with Tendulkar for the rest of his life as the various dimensions of violence in the society - psychological, political, sexual, social and obviously physical, preoccupied his works. He even spent time with prisoners to study violence, after he got a Nehru fellowship.

Yet, the best quality of his work, is a cool detachment to its subjects. He resisted the temptation of taking any ideological, intellectual or moral sides or denouncing any character based on their actions. Like a true creator, like god, like a parent, he was equally empathetic towards all, prompting Makarand Sathe to write in the preface of the collected works of Ten titled ‘Vijay Tendulkar Omnibus’: “His ability to empathize with each and everyone, regardless of class, background - including criminal background - is phenomenal… Even as a journalist, this consciousness made him keep his eyes open. Not all journalists ‘felt’ these changes and the undercurrents produced by them. This was especially true with regard to violence, ruthless competition, and the power struggles of capitalist democracy that afflict modern life.”

He thus proves to be a true Gandhian once again, especially in the literary world.

To be continued …

Satyen K. Bordoloi (with invaluable inputs and photographs from Subhash Chheda)

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