Veteran theatre director Ram Gopal Bajaj wants theatre to be a pillar of a new culture policy. By Siddharth Choudhary
If you thought that theatre was breathing itself out of the sick room, given the latest experiments with broadcasting plays and the return of touring festivals, thespian Ram Gopal Bajaj feels we should not be content with pyrrhic victories and focus on longevity of theatre as the highest form of performance art.
Presiding over the Chamanlal awards this weekend, the theatre director says like all things glossy, there’s a misconception that theatre is evolving. For him, contemporary theatre is stagnant. “It may be because of the few theatre institutes that are left, with hardly any room for opportunities. For instance, the actors who graduate from NSD are not willing to call themselves theatre professionals because being one hardly helps you sustain. They move to TV or films to make money. If a theatre actor cannot sustain himself on the basis of his skill set and pursue his passion, then how can we say that the theatre movement has been a successIJ,” he asks.
The reason for the lack of enthusiasm is that theatre is not part of any teaching curriculum. Bajaj believes that if music or dancing can be promoted to the level of becoming a subject, it is a given that theatre must be bestowed such a status so that it can survive. “There has been absolutely no effort to create a space for performing arts in the education sector even after so many years of independence. There has been no acceptance of theatre. One can use acting to become a leader or a politician. Yet you deny theatre the right to be a subject of your course curriculum. People are being denied their basic human right of expression then,” he thunders.
Ruing the lack of a constructive cultural policy, he wonders why as a society we do not let the young have creative spaces of worth instead of rampant consumerist structures. “The youth are becoming cushioned with self-comfort. Does theatre get the step-motherly treatment because it is perceived as questioning the status quo and the establishmentIJ We need to have theatre for a healthy dialogue,” says the man who has been credited with getting regional theatre under the roof of Bharat Rangmahotsav during his tenure as NSD director.
On losing talent to films, Bajaj feels there is a need to focus on theatre as a separate performing art so that one can be devoted to it. “Another factor is the lack of Hindi regional cinema.” Giving the example of Bengali or Telugu cinema with their enriching diversity, he points out that Hindi cinema and television is solely active in Bombay and is not nurtured in the Hindi-speaking heartland as diversified ventures. “Had that been the case, there would be some interest in local theatre traditions. If you see the theatre in Mumbai is very localised, there is hardly any traffic with films. That’s because it has an identity despite films.”
His views on the current social scenario are very critical for he believes that commercialisation has poisoned society and left it corrupt and decaying. The very fact that theatre is not even considered a profession in our society is shameful and a proof of that decay.
Having received the Padma Shri and many other awards, Bajaj feels that one cannot just rest on laurels. Comparing the life of a theatre artist with that of a sportsman, he highlights the length of depravity that theatre has to face. His advice to budding artists is to create a base by promoting theatre in their locality so that the artform can be nurtured collectively. “The effort has to start from the basic grassroot level. We need to understand the need for performing facilities, so that we can infuse the art in the young minds before they get ‘corrupted’ by commercialisation,” he adds.