The example of Bhave had greatly influenced the Parsi community in Bombay. Rich, talented and easily adaptable, because of the lack of a cultural tradition of their own, the Parsis took up both Gujerati drama and the Hindustani stage. The essentially practical bent of their mind, however, put commercial success above artistic achievement and they soon succeeded in vulgarizing every theatrical effort.

That they produced men with a rich histrionic talent there is no doubt, but the lack of a language of their own made it impossible for them to develop drama which could survive the years. And yet they occupied the centre of the theatrical life of India for more than half a century, with the Alfred, Madan and Balliwala Companies, performing, mainly in Hindustan, plays which were adaptations from Shakespeare or amalgams of socio-historical-musical content, and which petered out in the bathetic, decadent displays of the imitators of these imitating Parsis.

The real Gujerati theatre arose, however, as a reaction to the Parsi vulgarity. Ranchodbhai Udayaram was disgusted with the low pot-pourri presented in the Parsi owned and run theatres of Bombay and began to render and adapt the Sanskrit classics. He wrote a popular play called Harischchandra and then a social tragedy. After him a school-teacher called Narottam started an amateur company and then three business men founded the Gujerati company.

Later there arose the Bombay Gujerati company of Dayashankar with performances of The Morbi of Oza and The Doshi of Dahyabnai Dholsha through whom the modern Gujerati stage arose. The fact, however, that the Gujerati middle class is mainly commercialist led them, after a little while, to ape the Parsi vulgarians and the new ventures ran through the gamut of pseudo-historical Pauranic and English adaptations to ultra-romantic thrills and ended in the low social farce.

Under the weight of all this sensationalism it is a relief to come across the na�ve plays of K.M. Munshi who had a ready pen and attacked corrupt social practices. Unfortunately, however, there is a lack of intensity in Munshi's writing, and his vagaries as a politician have brought his literary work into contempt amongst the public. Mrs. Munshi's one-act plays are, on the contrary, much admired, both for their sincerity and polished writing.

C.C. Mehta, a highly talented Gujerati dramatist, has gone much further than any other writer in his linguistic group in bringing into the written play the kind of idiom and technique, which may perfect the modern Gujerati drama. His play on the life of the railway workers, Ag-Gari, has become an important piece in the repertory of the avant-garde theatre. Mehta has a very thorough grasp of technique, and particularly influenced by his knowledge of the radio play he can juggle with his theme, mixing tears with laughter and suspense, through his intense awareness of people.

And he deliberately sets out to moralize in the Shavian manner as in his play on the life of the Gujerati poet, Narmad. But the popularity of his plays among the low priced seats in the auditorium shows that he writes through an alliance with common moods, for nowhere in the world can one touch the core of the pit unless one is instinctively connected with human emotions. Certainly, he has done more than any writer to resurrect the drama from the abject servility of the Gujeratis to the upper middle-class culture of Bengal by a return to the living experience of the Western Indian.

Furthermore, he seems to have taken Goethe's advice: "He who would work for the stage should study the stage�"