Pic:- Sudhir Shetty/DNA
1953. Burjor Patel, L.L.B. What next?
We moved into a bigger home with my uncles and aunt getting married.
New faces at home.
My angelic grandmother passed away, grandfather was also not in the best of health.
Loneliness.
My only companion and confidante my brother.
He graduated as a chartered accountant and joined our family firm Dhanbhoora & Co Chartered Accountants.
His career on the right path. What about me? No lawyer in the family. I wondered why I had taken up law? Perhaps, I saw them as actors in the theatre of justice. I was told I would have to join a solicitor or advocate’s firm as an apprentice and later appear for exams to qualify for practice. It would be a long wait. I didn’t have the patience. I wanted to work and start earning.
While at the Government Law College, I had started working as honorary secretary for Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Kala Kendra wing. They had a fully equipped theatre. I thought this would be an ideal venue for Adi Marzban’s plays instead of the St Xavier’s College hall where he staged his plays. Adi showed interest and I introduced him to Girish Munshi, the son of Kanhaiyalal Munshi, trustees of the Bhavan. This meeting resulted in a long association between Adi and Kala Kendra.
Adi Marzban was not only a theatre icon, but also the owner and editor of a daily newspaper called Jam-e-Jamshed,which was started by his forefathers. Adi offered me a position in the advertisement department of the publication. I had to choose between a long wait as a practicing lawyer and Adi’s offer. With my passion for theatre and the opportunity to be close to Adi, it was not a difficult choice. I accepted and entered a new phase of my life.
But before that let me relate my first experience with Adi. I was in college and was introduced to him as a budding actor who had won several prizes at the college level. Adi was rehearsing a play and invited me to join.
All excited I went to the first rehearsal. Fortunately, the rehearsals were held close to my residence. I eagerly watched the rehearsal and before I left Adi said “Kaalay Aavjo” (come tomorrow). Days went by. It was always “come tomorrow”. I did not expect I would be kept waiting in the wings for so long. It used to be very unnerving. Here I was a college prizewinner, the envy of my college friends, pretty girls vying for my attention and all I was doing was attending rehearsals and nobody was even noticing me.”What the hell is this?” I thought.
Finally, my time came. It was a scene of a meeting and I was given barely four lines to speak. That was my role in a two-hour full-length play.
The play Shirinbai Nu Shantiniketan opened to huge success with Adi’s star players receiving standing ovation. On hindsight it was the best thing to have happened to me. It was a great learning experience — the difference between a college play and professional theatre. Today’s rising stars will never have that kind of patience.
From four lines in 1950 to playing the main lead in all of Adi’s plays from 1954 was a journey of learning by watching the senior actors enact a variety of roles, interacting with the technical crew — set designers, lighting experts, music composers, make-up artists and even stage hands.
I would like to end with a quote from an interview done in 1989 by Geeta Doctor of Parsiana magazine: “Patel is like a child who has got on to a carousal that has never stopped spinning”.
And still spinning at my age past 80 !
The author is a well-known stage personality.
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