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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
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Noted playwright Vijay Tendulkar dead

Special Correspondent

Vijay Tendulkar

NEW DELHI: Noted Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar, 80, died in Pune on Monday morning; bringing the curtains down on one of the country’s most influential dramatists who packed into his repertoire short stories, newspaper columns, novels, film scripts, translations and television programmes.

Writing his first story at the age of six and making his tryst with the stage — as writer, director and actor — five years later, Mr. Tendulkar swore never to write at the age of 22 when his play Grihast was heckled off the stage.

Staging a comeback, he went on to write over 30 full-length plays, several one-act plays, collection of short stories and film scripts; many of which brought him awards.

Though best known for his plays — Ghasiram Kotwal and Sakharam Binder being the shining stars of his body of work — Mr. Tendulkar described himself “first a writer and then a playwright.”

Ghasiram Kotwal

Ghasiram Kotwal (Ghasiram the Constable) a musical combining Marathi folk performance styles and contemporary theatrical techniques — is billed as one of the longest-running plays in the world with over 6,000 performances in India and abroad in the original and in translation.

Writing in practically every form, he picked up awards on the way, including the Padma Bhushan, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, Filmfare Award, Saraswati Samman, Kalidas Samman, Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar. Films like ‘Aakrosh’, ‘Manthan’ and ‘Ardha Satya’ — each a powerful example of India’s “alternate cinema” — brought him instant fame but that did not draw Mr. Tendulkar to mainstream cinema despite offers from big-ticket producers like Raj Kapoor and Yash Chopra.

In his own words, “writer is no more than a hack” for mainstream cinema.

Courting controversy with his words — he has been accused of obscenity and needless violence, crude exhibitionism of sexuality, anti-Brahminism, historical distortions and plagiarism — he survived it all till he became victim to myasthenia gravis, a debilitating muscular disorder.

Known to be uncompromising vis-À-vis the powers that be in Delhi — proximity to which facilitates state patronage — The playwright’s personal life was wrought with tragedy towards his twilight years — he lost his wife and two children, including television actress Priya Tendulkar in close succession.

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