The legend of Indian theatre Habib Tanvir passed away recently leaving behind a void that would be hard to fill for a long time. Chaman Ahuja writes about the significant contribution of this man who gave a new definition to Theatre  AS the news of the demise of Habib Tanvir on June 8 stirred the memory of my few meetings with him, oddly enough, I found one image haunting me — his constant fiddling with his all-too-familiar pipe. In the course of the interview, he would keep poking into it, emptying it, cleaning it, turning it up and down, right and left, filling it, puffing at it, and even when he seemed to enjoy the puff, he would smack it and start tinkering again, and yet again, all with keen concentration.

That playful tinkering, I tend to believe, was a symbolic echo of his constant engagement with another pipe (dream) of his, viz. theatre — Indian theatre, to be more precise. He did so many things to it in different permutations but, like a typical perfectionist, he always felt the need to do more and still more. The reason possibly was that he was a man of many parts (read, many arts) — a poet, a playwright, a critic, an actor, a director, a minstrel, and so on; thus, even when one part in him was gratified, another still clamoured for a change and so he would invent ways of satisfying the diverse creators within him.

Perfectionist to the core

Thanks to the diverse patterns of his creative kaleidoscope, he always tended to appear a pioneer of sorts. But, while a pioneer generally sets the ball rolling only to be eclipsed by the perfected arts of those who emulate him, Habib was an exception in so far as he himself sought to chase that perfection. That made him a master-pioneer in innumerable areas.

People’s theatre, adaptation of Western plays, revival of classical Sanskrit dramaturgy, harking back to tradition, search for a new theatre idiom, modernisation of folk forms, evolution of total theatre — name any of the trends that enjoyed currency in the latter half of the 20th century and Tanvir’s name figures most prominently for being among the first in attempting it, as also for artistic excellence of the
highest order.

Indeed, in any genuine attempt to list the makers of modern Indian theatre, Habib Tanvir is very much there.

Taken one to one, in the context of achievement in one particular field or the other, there might have been others who possibly excelled Habib; it is also possible that those chroniclers who proceed decade-wise will prefer to refer to the post-Independence theatre of India as the ages of Shombhu Mitra, E. Alkazi, Dharam Vir Bharati, B.V. Karanth, Ratan Thiyam, and so on. But, in claiming such an honour for the entire latter half of the 20th century, Tanvir is not likely to face any serious challenge.

Habib’s role appears in clearer focus if we place him in the cultural milieu of his own region — Madhya Pradesh, in general, and Chhattisgarh, in particular.

The efforts of Kalidasa Akademi to make Kalidasa our contemporary, the efforts of Rangmandal to create a brand new indigenous theatre idiom, the efforts of the Indian People’s Association (IPTA) to evolve people’s theatre, the efforts of Ranga Sri to create beauty out of traditional arts, the efforts of native tribal artists to preserve their own heritage without sacrificing its authenticity — all these seemed to yield several streams of theatre that might have continued to flow parallel to one another had not this man of destiny appeared on the scene to tinker with the courses of these brooks to help them merge into one mainstream which is at once regional in temper and national in sweep.

In fact, it is possible to say that Habib absorbed the richness and variety of the theatre of the entire central belt because, in his productions, one may hear the echoes of nautanki from UP, khayal from Rajasthan, bhavai from Gujarat, tamasha from Maharashtra, maanch from MP as well as nacha from Chhattisgarh. No wonder, theatre circles abroad are fond of projecting the peculiarities of Habib’s theatre as the quintessential attributes of the entire Indian theatre today.

Born in Raipur (1923), Habib was educated in Nagpur and Aligarh, initiated into theatre and the media in the metropolises of Bombay and Delhi, exposed to the western theatre in London and Berlin, before he set up his group, Naya Theatre, in 1959. Ideologically Leftist, theatrically Brechtian, he interacted with different kinds of theatre to imbibe the spirit of each. The resulting creative reactions yielded a vast variety of work: acting in Parsi theatre, doing plays in English, street theatre with IPTA, training at RADA, adapting Brecht’s model, struggling with Sanskrit classics (Mitti Ki Gaadi in 1958 to Mudra-Rakshasa in 1996), and so on.

It is customary to divide Tanvir’s career broadly into three stages — work with IPTA in Hindustani or mixed dialects in plays like Shatranj Ke Mohre (1951), Agra Bazar (1954); work with urban groups in Urdu or English, like Rustom Sohrab (1960), Mirza Shohrat Beg (1960); and work with Chhattisgarh performers in plays like Charan Das Chor (1975), Bahadur Kalarin (1978), Shajapur Ki Shanti Bai (1978), Hirma Ki Amar Kahani (1985), Dekh Rahey Hain Nayen (1992), etc.

But seen closely, it is possible to further categorise his work with the tribal performers — first, when he made them do classics; second, when he gave professional touches to the already existing plays of theirs; third, when he adapted their folk tales and used their songs, music and dances to create plays that click with the urban sensibility. In the last category inheres his typical signature.

From the vantage point of his final exit, if we look back at the phases, certain elements do emerge as common — his love of common man, his fondness for folk music, and his passion for poetry. He had them all even when working with IPTA, only everything came after
the ideology.

It was in London that he realised that socially meaningful and artistically interesting work was possible only when one worked within one’s own cultural tradition and context. That necessitated a quest for indigenous performance idiom; but before he could pursue that exploration, he found himself in Berlin. There he could not meet Brecht (who had died by then), but he did realise how music may be used as an integral part of theatre to say what mere actors might fail to communicate.

Back home, with such ideas in mind, he created Agra Bazar; the play was revived later with the illiterate performers of Okhla village. It was for these common men that Nazir Akbarabadi had written his poems — for them and about them. Thus, instead of idolising the poet, the play idealises his poetic approach. The poet never comes on the stage and yet his poetry sways the entire action. It is recited and sung by laymen and ridiculed by the elite.

The next logical step was work with folk performers and for that he turned to his people back home — the Chhattisgarh performers. He found by and by that by making them speak chaste Hindustani and follow his directorial dictates, he was curbing their spontaneity as well as creativity. That led to the reversal of the process.

Instead of urbanising them, he would lend to their folksy material a touch of modernity. When a workshop with Nacha performers coalesced three of their comedies into one, Gaon ka Naam Sasural Mor Naam Damad (1973), his model stood crystallised. In effect, it meant so harnessing the elements of folk tradition as to yield new, contemporary meanings.

Tanvir was always interested in folk culture and traditional styles, but nothing would be more unjust than putting on him the label of a folk artist. He was basically a sophisticated, urban artist with modern sensibility, interested in blending folk creativity with critical consciousness. By no means a designer’s theatre, his was also neither a playwright’s theatre nor a director’s theatre.

Also, notwithstanding the great contribution made by the likes of such celebrated Chhattisgarhi performers as Lalu Ram, Fida Bai, Bulwa, Govind Ram, Deepak Tiwari, it wasn’t an actor’s theatre either. If one were to have just one word to define it, that one word has to be "total" theatre. Here was dovetailing of dance and music, songs and poetry, myths and reality, tradition and modernity, urban sophistication and folk spontaneity — in short, everything.

It is sheer poetry in the language of theatre. And like all good poetry, it is local and contemporary on the one hand, and universal and eternal on the other. It can accommodate Tagore (Visarjan), Shakespeare (Kamdev Ka Apna, Basant Ritu Ka Sapna), Brecht (Good Woman), Bhasa (Uttara Ram-Charit), Asghar Vajahat (Jis Lahore Nahin Vekhya), and what not.

Tanvir had the rare distinction of becoming a legend in his lifetime and that he is bound to remain for a long, long time. However, now that he is no more, one cannot help wondering about the possibility of his legacy passing as a new tradition.

The problem with geniuses like Habib is that they cannot be equalled or even emulated. Who, indeed, has his rootedness as well his exposure to the entire range of European theatre, his creative versatility and his passion for innovation, his range of artistic interests and his will to try his hand at Sanskrit plays, western classics, folk plays, musicals, and so on?

Only he could create ‘nai nautanki’ without taking anything from Nautanki proper, only he could imbue the simplistic form of nacha with the thematic complexity of modernistic plays, only he could harness Bhasa’s plays to Pandavani style, only he could build plays around poetry or transform folk tales into masterpieces; no wonder, few directors have dared mount most of his plays.

Habib it was, who, instead of romanticising the folk theatre, effected an interaction between the modern consciousness on the one hand and the folk forms and the folk music on the other. After all, despite his urban grooming and western training, he always belonged to the folk milieu. With equal ease, he could yoke the traditional and the modern, the folk and the classical, the oriental and the occidental.

One cannot talk about Tanvir School of theatre or Habib’s theatre as a new category, as a new genre. In this context, it is worth remembering that he did not allow much role to theory in the field of creativity. No wonder, to Brecht he owed not the theory of Alientation but musical practice. Likewise, when he did Mitti Ki Gaadi, he had no idea of classical Sanskrit theatre, not even of Bharata’s Natya Shastra. In his not allowing critical theory to dictate his practice lay his strength as well as his weakness.

Tanvir’s contribution is immense. A new Indian theatre, he believed, will emerge not when urban artists just exploit the external aspects of folk forms but when the folk and tribal performers get involved in urban theatre. In his work, we have, as it were, a veritable model in how things can be done, only the model is rather too demanding.

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