I feel that we must address certain aspects of history through the medium of documentary theatre,” says Mohan Maharishi, veteran theatre director on the sidelines of the staging of his play, ‘Dear Bapu’, as part of the National School of Drama’s ‘Bharat Rang Mahotsav, 2008’ in Delhi.

 In an exclusive interview with Sunday Herald, he spoke at length about the uniqueness of this production and the genre of documentary theatre. He continued, “It (documentary theatre) has been done in the west, but in India, it has not been done to the extent it should be.” On the absence of enough plays in the documentary theatre genre, Professor Maharishi explained, “I feel that as a race, we lack a sense of history. It is very important for younger people to know what happened before Independence.” But he sees this play as different from the European documentary theatre. “Heiner-Muller mixes history with fantasy. I have kept away from fantasy, I have kept to the facts and the bare facts of the Independence period,” he added.

Maharishi’s play, narrates the story of India’s freedom struggle and weaves together 21  selected letters between Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. On the choice of the period for his play, he replied, “The social and political events of this period, I believe, are of great importance to us. Especially, the correspondence between Gandhi and Nehru acquires a great deal of immediacy in our own times.”

The one hour and 45 minutes play in English has Bhaskar Ghosh playing Mahatma Gandhi and Sunit Tandon giving life to Jawaharlal Nehru, and Sabina Mehta plays the narrator. “All the words spoken in this play are of Gandhi and Nehru. But, Gandhi and Nehru are not impersonated here. There is Brechtian alienation. Ideas are important, not characters. I find it extremely annoying to enact Nehru, or, to impersonate or imitate Gandhi, because however good an actor one may be, as was Ben Kingsley in the film ‘Gandhi’, it does not help.The psycho-spiritual qualities of Gandhi's personality was missing in Kingsley’s portrayal,” he said.

The performance
The play witnessed a riveting performance by Bhaskar Ghosh and Sunit Tandon. Professor Maharishi, a founder member of NSD repertory company and an NSD alumnus, describes his craft in his play, “I could have, like Heiner-Muller, changed the facts of history and staged a very fictitious play. It was very tempting to do that. However, after my extensive research on the letters between Gandhi and Nehru, I have stuck to the facts.” But the recipient of many national awards is quick to add his admiration for the German playwright, “I have seen Heiner-Muller's theatre and also met him personally. I have great admiration for his work, but ‘Dear Bapu’ is a different kind of documentary theatre.”

On questioned about the theatricality of this kind of a play with the two actors standing on the stage and reading out letters to each other, the former theatre advisor to the Mauritius government replies, “I don’t mean to answer those questions whether this is theatre. Because it is theatre. And it is the theatre of ideas, theatre of debate, and it has a very, very long tradition in theatre. For instance, the very origin of Greek theatre was from debate, the very intense debate of ideas.” He adds, “The plays of Sophocles and Achilles are all born out of it. Antigone itself is a debate on the idea of freedom versus the state.” But he admits that the debates have to be changed to suit our own times.

About the choice of actors for this play, the former vice-chairman of NSD recalls the process, “For the part of Gandhi, I could not think of anyone else than Bhaskar Ghosh. He is an extremely intelligent and well-read person, and has also been at the helm of the government. He knew everything about Gandhi, and I knew, he would understand what he was speaking about.” Bhaskar Ghosh’s rendition of Gandhi’s stoic and spiritual discourse was counter-acted by a brilliant, passionate portrayal of Nehru by Sunit Tandon. “Though initially I had someone else in mind to play Nehru, Sunit soon became a natural choice. I needed a strident and argumentative Nehru on stage. I decided that Sunit will fit in ideally.”

On the state of contemporary theatre in India, Mohan Maharishi laments, “There is plenty of talent here, but it is going waste, because theatre cannot give you a livelihood in India.”