The whole world knew Dr Ranade as a music person. He was a vocalist who had been trained in the traditional manner. He was known as a music teacher. He was the first head of the Bombay University Music Centre. He wrote numerous books on Hindustani music and on the aesthetics of music. He was a music researcher and archivist and he was a musicologist.

It is generally known that Dr Ranade was a keen theatre enthusiast. In fact in those days all Maharashtrians were keen on theatre. Then how was Dr Ranade different? What is his exact contribution to theatre in Mumbai, in Maharashtra and in India?

I first met Dr Ranade in 1966. He was almost 30 then. I was 17. He had come to the Haji Ali Government Colony to deliver a lecture on Hindustani classical music. Those were the hey days of Bhimsen Joshi and Kumar Gandharva. We youngsters were keen and inquisitive. I was very lucky because most musicians including Bhimsenji and Kumarji were personal friends of my father. But they would not tell me much. All my questions were answered with demonstrations and anecdotes. That took me nowhere. Then Ranade came. He talked of tal and swar and saptak and rag and aroha and avaroha. He explained the physics and the art.

I got hooked, immediately. He was then the Head at the University Music Centre and used to sit in the University Club House. Though I was not a direct student of Prof M P Rege and Dr R B Patankar, I was attracted to them not only because of aesthetics but because of Prof Rege's Royist leanings and his work with the Yuvak Kranti Dal. That brought me closer to Prof A B Shah who was the editor of Quest and would like to interact with radical students like me. Prof Rege and Dr Patankar had founded the Aesthetic Society. All this activity centred around the same people. Dr Ranade was a part of this team. So I had direct access to him. Those days, we hosted many seminars on aesthetics and performing arts, visual arts and literature. Ranade's contributions were immense.

The early encounters

Kamalakar Sontakke was conducting theatre classes in Amrut Natya Bharati in Mumbai Marathi Sahitya Sangh. Ranade taught speech there. Again, I was not a direct student. But I was there. Again I brushed shoulders with Ranade. The first batch completed its two-year course. I had just translated a Shaw play: Overruled. I wanted to produce it. I thought Sontakke would direct it. So we founded a theatre group called Anupad. Ranade was the chairman and I was the secretary. We met on a weekly basis and read plays. Avant garde and celebrated playwright Chin Tryam Khanolkar also read his plays. We were depending on Sontakke. But he got a British Council scholarship and went to London for two years to work with Joan Littlewood. So Anupad did not take off.

Then I got married. I started a printing press (Akshar Paratiroop). Also, I started Pareekshan, a monthly in English devoted to theatre, film and art criticism. I wanted Ranade to pen the music section. So I went to meet him at the Music Centre. Just as Sontakke had said no to Anupad, Ranade said no to Pareekshan. Both had thought us to be immature. But Pareekshan survived for a year without Ranade. I was angry with him.

But we used to meet him at the Music Centre regularly. Vijaya Mehta directed Devajine Karuna Keli for Rangayan. This was Madgulkar's adaptation of Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan. Meena, whom I later married, did the lead role. She had to perform a few songs. These were very un-Marathi sounding songs. Plus Brecht had propounded the idea of 'gestic' music. Vijayabai asked Ranade to do the music. Ranade composed the music and Meena had to rehearse these songs with him. I was allowed to attend the rehearsals by Vijayabai, partly because of Meena and partly because Vijayabai always had a soft corner for me.

The relationship grows

Then Ranade shifted to Sahitya Sahawas from Girgaon. Sahitya Sahawas is a colony for authors, and next to our colony for artists: Kalanagar. Now Ranade was supposed to be like a child. At least, this is what his father always thought. And so he entrusted me with the task of taking care of Ranade. I am not joking. Even Didi, Mrs Ranade, contributed to this viewpoint. So I became a sort of guardian to Ranade.

His finances, his domestic arrangements, his tailor, his dhobi, his passport, his travel arrangements, his foreign exchange, his stationery, even packing his bags. All that was my responsibility. Once he wanted pads of very thin paper so he could make multiple carbon copies. I made these for him with onion skin paper. But he found difficulty in writing on it. He could not find the right ink pen. Once he wanted postcard size cards for making notes and rearranging them alphabetically. I did it for him. He carried these with him to Oxford University and paid excess baggage charges, which he borrowed from the woman standing in the queue. He also carried all his ayurvedic medicines (which I thought were useless). Then he took a cab from Heathrow and paid through his nose. And so during the rest of the trip he had to be very thrifty. I had to take care on all his subsequent trips till Didi started accompanying him.

I even tutored him about how to tie the knot of a necktie before he went abroad for the first time: to Russia. But he did not learn. So I tied a few knots which he would tighten and loosen every time. But he eventually stuck to the polo-neck.

When he came back from China we could not spot him in the arrival lounge. He had started looking like a Mandarin himself! So it was big fun to be with him in those days. He was oblivious to everything mundane.

A guru-shishya relationship

It was like a very reciprocal guru-shishya relationship. I got a lot for what I did for him and Didi. I got his constant company from 1974 to the last week. And in the process I got into the inner circles of music. I could meet and interact with Mallikarjun Mansur and Ramnarain.

I loved theatre and Ranade loved theatre. So theatre was constantly discussed. Then we would read plays on a weekly basis: meaning we had a group which included Dr Patankar, Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Achyut Vaze, Yasmin Lukmani, Shama Fateali, Rajeev Naik, Meena Naik. We met on Saturday nights in his house and read. We saw plays together, and English movies. We did not miss the foreign touring company plays, though we could not afford the tickets. We discussed books and theories. We always quarrelled. We never agreed. But that helped. At least it helped me. There are anecdotes and anecdotes. Some emotional, some hilarious.

Speech training

Just as Ranade conducted music appreciation courses very regularly, he also conducted voice culture and speech training classes for actors. This is a major contribution. It is true that he was not the pioneer. His guru Prof B R Deodhar had already started this. But that was for vocalists. In theatre Parshwanath Altekar had started this for actors in the late 40s and early 50s. A complete generation of actor-directors like Vijayabai, Kenkre, Bhende, Sudha Karmarkar, even Satyadev Dubey, were impressed and influenced by Altekar.

Then what is Ranade's contribution? His approach was different. In the first place, the understanding of the human sound-making equipment, its development and maintenance, use of physical exercises, yoga, pranayam, om. Deep breathing, holding the breath, using it sparingly so as not to get exhausted in saying long sentences, the spacing of clauses and sentence parts to take in short breaths. Posture in standing and sitting. Even lying down.

But to all this was added a profounder understanding of the text. Ranade considered and classified different kinds of speeches, the moods, the import, the emotion. For example, he differentiated between the 'aside' and the 'soliloquy', which many actors ignored. He analysed plays, characters, speeches, dialogues from Sanskrit, Marathi, English and Hindi plays from the language and speech point of view, and he used selected passages to cover the entire gamut in the training process. He also lectured on this subject to public speakers, teachers, announcers and news readers on radio and television, comperes, and all sorts of people who had to use their voice in their professions.

When Vijay Kenkre directed my free verse translation of Othello, Ranade and Damoo Kenkre took workshops on how to say Shakespeare's lines and how to accompany it with stylized gestures. We were lucky. Ranade conducted many workshops and taught in many universities including the National School of Drama.

Ranade theorised on this subject through articles and books. Bhashan va Natyavishayak Vichar (Language and theatre related issues) and Bhasahrang: Vyaspeeth ani Rangapeeth (Language aspects: the platform and the stage) are the two books in which he elaborates on his 'method' or 'system' of speech delivery.

The book Bhashan va Natyavishayak Vichar is in two parts. The second part is a collection of editorials he wrote for Facts & News during 1986-87-88. Facts & News was a publication of the Theatre Development Centre of the NCPA (National Centre of Performing Arts).

P L Deshpande was the director of NCPA. He invited Ranade to join NCPA as deputy director in charge of the academic activities. There was much in common between the two. Both were noted musicians, both were theatre persons. Both had an affinity for the traditional and yet were modernists in their own work in music and theatre. They hosted musical programmes together: Baithakichi lavni, Balagandharva's songs, devotional songs, where they did not sing but jointly compered.

Ranade decided that a project called Theatre Development Centre should be undertaken. He prepared a programme which was supported and totally financed by the Ford Foundation. The activities were three-fold:

• Data collection, documentation, archiving


• Theatre training


• Publication and dissemination of information

• Voice and speech


• Direction


• Sets and lights


• Costumes and music


• Stage music


• Theatre economics and management

• Shubhechhansaha


• Samandharmi vyasaneshu sakhyam(Persons with common vices are friends)


• He choudava ratna (this is the fourteenth jewel)


• Well, you have read it so often ( I had read the proofs)


• A Mee Sha Ma-A Da Ra (meaning Arun, Meena, Shariva, Manava-Ashok Damodar Ranade)


• Heritage is not luggage (this was a reprimand!)


• More getting ready... Bear them all... (another poke in the ribs!)