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The Prithviwallahs are here
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"The Prithviwallahs" is an arresting account of the making of a unique experiment in theatre
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PRITHVIRAJ KAPOOR was standing in the line of extras at The Imperial Studio in 1929. Shooting for a silent film Cinema Girl was about to begin. The hero of the film did not turn up. An angry director B.B. Mishra decided to teach him a lesson by replacing him. He asked the heroine Erneline to pick and choose an actor from the extras. She chose Prithviraj for his majestic personality and great looks. And the rest is history.
Whether it was all-time hit Mughal-e-Azam or his last film Sikandar, that took him above his contemporaries, yet he felt like a "caged lion" in the film world. So at the peak of his career in films, he left films. For the love of theatre. He started Prithvi Theatre in 1944, did 2,662 shows in 16 years at 112 venues all over India but still could not give his theatre a permanent premise.
When he died in 1972, Shammi Kapoor stopped shaving until after he was severely ill and was taken to a hospital where he was given a shave. In 1975, Jennifer with her efforts with architect Ved Segan and Shashi Kapoor, finally gave Prithvi a permanent building taking great care that it is used by professional theatre groups. For several years, it faced severe financial crunch though the tag of the theatre always brought huge crowd to the shows. But then, the ticket prices too were too low to make profits. And you will be surprised to learn that Shashi and Jennifer always bought tickets for plays that they watched.
There are several such tales about the making of Prithivi Theatre, how the whole family of Kapoors got involved into it with well wishers like Geoffrey Kendal of Shakespeareana theatre of England whose daughter Jennifer later married Shashi, how when she died of cancer in Zambia, a comedy play "Unse Mili Nazar" was not cancelled on her instructions and how her son Kunal and later Sanjana took the responsibility of carrying on with the theatre's tradition of staging powerful plays despite financial constraints.
Generally for a book on famous theatrical and Hindi film personalities, some colourful pictures are a normal expectation. But the big, black book that runs into 152 pages, penned by Deepa Gahlot and published by Roli Books, is replete with all black and white pictures of good old days. It sets the atmosphere of going down memory lane with the narrator. The language will interest you for its flow through the details of the making of Prithvi Theatre, at times, asks for some relaxation, some pause and some breathing space to sink in again. It also tells tales of emotional lives of most of Kapoors in bits and pieces, which comes as a breather during some mechanical details, its pictures of young Kapoors, Jennifer, Zohra Segal, her sister Uzra Mumtaz and even labourers give it a personal touch too.
A huge mask of Prithviraj Kapoor, which was installed on the façade of Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai, might have surprisingly disappeared from the site one day but your interest in the book is not likely to vanish once you start reading it. It simply may make you fall in love with theatre and its nitty gritty.
RANA SIDDIQUI
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