If you met Chetan Datar in the last months of his life, not that any of us knew it was going to be the last few months of his life, he was carrying the crucifix of the burden of sustaining Awishkar's activity, Marathi theatre and perhaps the young people who flocked to him. The slender body, had begun to develop a hunch. But he would prowl and strut, then welcome you with a warm greeting, and burst into laughter. Or he would cock his head, smile, fidget and twitch, all at once and bellow Ramu Ramoowalia, for all the world to hear. That was his pet name for me.

For those of you not in the know, B S Ramoowalia, was an Akali Dal MP and also the man who read aloud to the Late Harkishen Singh Surjeet when his eyes started to fail. And so, I was Ramoowalia because Chetan thought I was the One Who Whispered Utterances to Comrades; and he was Chikoo Master, which I improvised from his pet name, Chikoo.

These remained our stage names.

As always, there are vignettes to share, the first meetings at NCPA, watching him at Tilak Mandir in Parle East where he was watching his own play (Savlya) being performed in the 80s with a first-time playwright's awkwardness, holding forth in the quadrangle in Mahim Municipal School. He was at ease with Sane Guruji, in as much as an east European film-maker. He would watch some trashy Bollywood film and discuss in great detail the non-existent script, followed by a meticulous study of every nuance of Sharukh Khan's ears, nose, wrist and walk. He used to say, the art of bad acting had helped him direct his first play, and even later on, he understood his young actors emotion-flapping see-saws through Bollywood behaviour.

He used to say: "Some of these young chaps don't have real emotions or real occurrences. Everything is borrowed. It's scary."

Of the elite disciples Satyadev Dubey gathered round him in Mumbai, the NSD (National School of Dubey) as he called them, it was generally agreed that there was none like Chetan. His background was similar to Dubey. Low profile, traditional Brahmin family: middle-class, well-read, RSS roots. But his approach was different. He focused on the "extremes", the beginning or end of an action. Whereas Dubey worked like an "in-betweener". Chetan learnt that and then quickly moved on. Trying to do things differently. Be it through dance theatre where in a play like Haravlele Pratibimb, he tried to (along with his dance collaborators) fill in with quick, clear space lines the progressions of movement in a cheek, a hand or a leg, finding and sustaining the inner rhythm of the character.

When I had seen that production, which was highly acclaimed, I told him this, "it has too much of the kitsch of Sachin Shanker whereas it needed the austerity and aesthetics of Chandralekha." He riposted, "Get me a Chandralekha and I will give you what you want."



The trouble with our theatre

What mattered for him was the play and the theatre movement, and not the quality behind it. This let him suffer fools. "Is the person genuine, and why does he feel that way?" was the question he asked when he was confronted with someone's new talent. As a young man he had dreamed of being a great playwright. He said: "Right from Tendulkar's minimalist dialogues to Khadilkar's dramatic text, the word is at the centre. Both are brilliant playwrights, though their styles of writing are diverse. Most of Marathi theatre I watched in my formative years was word-oriented."

This is what he wanted to produce. Portraits so alluring that audiences would feel they are living the story. But his work as a playwright has been shortish. He chose the short cuts of translations and adaptation.

Within the theatre fraternity, he began to be counted as a director. This was an art form which came easily to him. He said: "I have worked with and observed various working-processes like those of Dubeyji, Vijaya Mehta, Fritz Bennewitz and Damu Kenkre."

He observed: "As a director I don't prefer directing my own plays but I am choosy about who directs them as my writer-ego comes in the way. But getting back to conceptualisation, the content of the play determines my taking it up. I never forget the audience whom I address. I like to indicate to my audience certain paths and views that they could choose to follow. One that goes deeper than mere portrayal. I see that my work is not reactionary. Also, the group I'm working with, the performance space, lack of funds etc. inevitably puts restrictions on my visualisation process. But I don't see these as obstacles as I am indirectly answerable to the theatre economics. Therefore I prefer simple sets, working more on actors and doing more shows than, say, hiring a tempo for a set."

And so, his work as a director, roared from strength to strength. With the backing of Arun Kakade and the Awishkar brain committee, he set up a numbing daily grind and churned out one production after another. The constant search of scripts; the mute challenge of a mis-cast actor and the half-filled cups of chai; the schedule-sheet tacked to the drawing-board about next month's program, demonstrating the exact tone of the scene and the dialogue to first time actors; the knowledge that the few props and broken planks in the back-room would be inadequate this time.

But Chetan seemed to make light of it, adoring the work and passing on his expertise enthusiastically to others. The only thing he possibly loved more was: reading and listening to high pedigree classical music. And I suppose these were the things that suffered, as he ran from rehearsal to rehearsal, huffing and panting and organising future shows and diffusing the politics and pettiness in a rehearsal.

In due course he used to say, he was on auto-pilot: everything functional, everything with a purpose.



An epilogue of sorts

Chetan broke free with his version of A Midsummer Night's Dream called Jungle Main Mangal. It was cross-gendered and phillumy. It was crude, lewd and flawed but total time pass and very entertaining. A dear friend was on his death bed while Chetan rehearsed the play. Somehow that tragedy gave him the spark.

I could never find the spark in subsequent productions. We discussed this. He was astonishingly brutal about his own plays. He reflected: "its perhaps because I am staging somebody else's thought."

And that was something that has always perplexed me. Why do it then? When I asked him, he would laugh at me, and say, somebody has to do the dirty work.

Those who remember him, think of him as acting and directing, rather than writing.

My memory of Chetan is him seated under a jacaranda tree in Whitefield with a big notebook, translating a German play into Marathi.

In the nineties, for some strange reason I was part of group of playwrights and directors who were herded to the Ecumenical Centre in the outskirts of Bangalore as part of a Grips theatre workshop. While the rest of us boozed, bitched and barfed, he completed Main Bhi Superman (in double quick time), which became an important children's play.

He had that ability. Chetan, once he had it in his mind, could work, work, work.



So much to say ...

We were friends not because I was a theatrewallah. I suspect, he called me friend only when he learnt that I had read Laxmibai's autobiography Smrutichitre in Marathi. After which, he became my consultant on Marathi literature. His consultancy fees, he insisted would be Kinnari having to feed him with salad and soups.

Yes, his demands were simple and few.

Recently, I read Vinda Karandikar's children poems. I told him, this should be staged. It's brilliant material.



He eMailed me:

"Karandikar's children poems are a real delight ... By god's grace my father had an eye for good literature ... I have been born and brought up on Vinda's poems ... Which one did you like? ... Etu Lokancha Desh ... Pishi Maushi ... Pandharpurchya Kavita ... All are truly great ... When my father use to read it was a dramatic performance. That remains one of the great moments of my life ... He was so fond of those poems he use to recite them to my elder brother's sons and Ashutosh's son ... And during that time I realised the genuine value of those poems ... Believe me, Vinda has used immaculate vocabulary ... which is typically Marathi ... Vinda has introduced innumerable Marathi customs into them ... Truly great poems and great artistry ... I am so elated that Ramoowalia read it and liked it ... Today, this Marathi Manoos is really happy ..."

That was more or less the last eMail I received from Chetan.

I saw him a week before he passed away. He had shrivelled to one-fourth his size, squirming on a mattress, surrounded by members of his family.

His life mirrored the modern theatrewallah's story, of disasters, failures, frustration and loneliness. And yet, he tried to shape it. Without cultural supporters or institutional backing, his was a difficult struggle. They tell me, he died of E coli and infection. But I think, it was because his back was broken. What I also know is, without Chetan, Marathi theatre's return to the top-most pedestal is going to be slower and less certain.

Goodbye, Chikoo Master. I will, always, miss you.