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Shanta Gandhi | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1917-12-20)20 December 1917 |
| Died | 6 May 2002(2002-05-06) (aged 84) |
| Occupation(s) | Dancer, theatre director, playwright |
| Known for | Jasma Odan (play) |
| Spouse | |
| Relatives | Dina Pathak (sister) |
Shanta Kalidas Gandhi (20 December 1917 – 6 May 2002) was an Indian theatre director, dancer and playwright who was closely associated withIPTA, the cultural wing of theCommunist Party of India. She studied withIndira Gandhi at a residential school in the early 1930s, and remained close to the prime minister in later life. She received many government awards and sinecures under theIndira Gandhi administration, including thePadma Shri (1984) and being made chairperson of theNational School of Drama (1982–84).
She was the sister of actressDina Pathak (née Gandhi) and Tarla Gandhi, also a stage performer.
She was a founder-member of the central ballet troupe of theIndian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), and toured the country widely through the 1950s. As a playwright she is remembered as an early pioneer in reviving ancient Indian drama especiallySanskrit drama and folk theatre to modernIndian theatre and amongst her most noted plays areRazia Sultan[1] andJasma Odan based on a Gujarati legend on the practice ofsuttee, her own production of the play in GujaratiBhavai style, became a landmark in contemporaryIndian theatre,[2] and along with 'Maina Gurjari' by her sisterDeena Gandhi (laterPathak), it is one of the most popularBhavais today.[3]
She was a founder-member ofAvehi, an education resource centre established in 1981, and also remained Chairperson ofNational School of Drama, 1982–1984.[4] She was awarded thePadma Shri in 1984 byGovernment of India and the 2001Sangeet Natak Akademi Award inDirection, given bySangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama.[5]
She joined Pupil's Own School, an experimental residential school inPune in 1932, where she became friends with classmateIndira Nehru.[6] She later moved to Bombay, when her engineer father found her becoming too involved in the left-wing student movement in the 1930s and sent her to England to study medicine.[citation needed] In London she stayed at a Fairfax Road boarding house across the hallway from Indira.Feroze Gandhi lived nearby, and the three of them would go out on the town together.[7] When Indira and Feroze secretly became engaged in 1936, Shanta was the only other person to know about it.[8] Soon she started frequentingIndia House, meeting up withKrishna Menon and his young 'Free India' associates, and even joined a dance troupe to raise funds for theSpanish Civil War. But before long her father called her back, as theWorld War II in Europe was starting, thus ending a possible medical career.
She joinedUday Shankar's 'Uday Shankar India Cultural Centre', at Simtola, 3 km fromAlmora, in Uttarakhand, and studiedBharata Muni'sNatyasastra from one of the teachers. She stayed there till it closed down in 1942.[9] Soon after, she became a full-time member of the Little Ballet Troupe, the dance wing of theIndian People's Theatre Association in Bombay (now Mumbai), here along with her young sistersDina Pathaknée Gandhi (1922–2002) and Tarla Gandhi. The ballet troupe createdIndia, Immortal,Man and Machine and the numerous legendary ballets that travelled India in 1950s with Ravi Shankar, Shanti Bardhan and many other performers and artists who later became famous on their own in modern Indian dance theatre and music. The sisters were also involved several years in the revival ofGujarati theatre in Bombay.[10]
In 1952, she started working with a group of children in the village Nikora, on the banks of theNarmada River, inSouth Gujarat with an informal curriculum. Later, an experimental school attached to the B.M. Institute of Child Psychology and Development,Ahmedabad, adopted this format and in the 1970s at the Bal Bhavan, Delhi took it as well, eventual Avehi was formed in 1981 and in 1990 when AVEHI took up the programme, and named it ABACUS with Shanta Gandhi as Director.[11]
In 1958, Shanta Gandhi was called to Delhi as Asian Theatre Institute was being set up, she joined a Professor of Ancient Indian Drama, in the following year when it merged with theNational School of Drama, she continued teaching and in the coming years revived ancient Indian plays starting withSanskrit drama masters,Kalidasa,Bhasa,Vishakhadatta andBhavabhuti. She was first to revive 4th century BC, Sanskrit playwright,Bhasa's through her productions ofMadhyamavyayoga (1966) (The Middle One) andUrubhanga (The Broken Thigh), a decade beforePannikar andRatan Thiyam began working with them.[12] She later directedVishakhadatta'sMudrarakshasa, Virkam Varman'sBhagavadajjukam (1967) all in Hindi.[12] In 1967, she wroteJasma Odan inGujarati based on a folk tale, subsequently she translated it in Malavi Hindi with Dr. Shyam Parmar, the result was her most noted production of theBhavai-based musicalJasma Odhan in 1968, withNSD Repertory Company featuring actors likeManohar Singh andUttara Baokar. She also did the design for the play, and it resurrected theBhavai folk theatre from Gujarat. Jasma Odhan remains an integral part of Bhavai repertoire to date[13] and ran successfully in cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Delhi for many years[14] and was also performed in London, Poland and GDR.[15] It was later revived byNadira Babbar's group Ek jute, which is now performing it for several years now.[16] She also wrote historical play,Razia Sultan which was quite popular[1] and usedNautanki folk theatre style fromUttar Pradesh choreographing her production,Amar Singh Rathor, which she also wrote. She revived interest inJaishankar Prasad's plays, which though appreciated for literary content were deemed un-stagable by scholars, by successfully staging his 1928 historical playSkanda Gupta, with little changes to the original script.[17] She remained its Chairperson, 1982–1984. She also remained Director, Bal Bhavan, Delhi and National Children's Museum.
Apart from plays, she wrote a short story collectionUgata Chhod (1951) and a novelAvinash (1952) in Gujarati. HerGujaratan ne Pagale Pagale (1948) includes sketches of ancient and modern women.[18]
She was married to Marxist historianVictor Kiernan in 1938 in Bombay (now Mumbai), but the couple divorced in 1946 before Kiernan left India.[19]
Shanta Gandhi.
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