Dressed in shorts and a tee shirt, with a haversack on his back, he stood out among the evening peak time horde at Dadar railway station. Standing on a corner of the platform, his wry child-like smile and soft eyes, made him seem a part of the crowd, as well as apart.
My then boyfriend walked up to him. Introductions and some small talk followed, before we were on our way. My first meeting with Chetan Datar around six years ago, was also the first time I had heard about him.
Over the next few years, I spoke to him once for a story, met him at a film screening another time, then at at play. News of his passing away on Saturday came as a shock of the kind that gets to you about someone's untimely death - especially some one as brilliant and promising as Datar.
Datar, 41, rose like a titan among the young playwrights that shook the theatre scene after the trail blazed by the likes of Vijay Tendulkar. Directing over 25 plays and writing and adapting around 15, he was declared a ``young giant in Marathi theatre'' by one news paper.
His works included Savlya, Gandhi Ani Ambedkar, Radha Vaja Ranade. He was also part of the Awishkar group - that encouraged experimental works by young playwrights, with screenings some times held at a dilapidated municipal school building in Mahim. One such play was Chhotyasa Sutit by gay playwright and author Sachin Kundalkar that I saw in the auditorium of the same building.
Datar, stepped out of the closet in his own quiet way, and dealt with the theme of homosexuality in many of his plays like Ek Madhav Baug, Holi, Ek Mitrachee Ghost among others.
A tight deadline at work meant that I missed the staging of Ek... at the World Social Forum in the city some years ago. The Hindi version of Ek Mitrachee Ghost, which I caught at NCPA, seemed (to me) to deal with the subject in its own coy way.
My last Datar play was the gender-bending Jungle Mein Mangal. His take on Shakespeare's A MidSummer Night's Dream was a literal romp through the jungle with cross dressing actors, with the very Maharashtrian tamasha at its centre. Watching the play on the lawns of the Horniman Circle Garden, as Oberon and Titania, schemed and duelled in verse and song, was an experience the audience was unlikely to forget in a long time.
My then boyfriend walked up to him. Introductions and some small talk followed, before we were on our way. My first meeting with Chetan Datar around six years ago, was also the first time I had heard about him.
Over the next few years, I spoke to him once for a story, met him at a film screening another time, then at at play. News of his passing away on Saturday came as a shock of the kind that gets to you about someone's untimely death - especially some one as brilliant and promising as Datar.
Datar, 41, rose like a titan among the young playwrights that shook the theatre scene after the trail blazed by the likes of Vijay Tendulkar. Directing over 25 plays and writing and adapting around 15, he was declared a ``young giant in Marathi theatre'' by one news paper.
His works included Savlya, Gandhi Ani Ambedkar, Radha Vaja Ranade. He was also part of the Awishkar group - that encouraged experimental works by young playwrights, with screenings some times held at a dilapidated municipal school building in Mahim. One such play was Chhotyasa Sutit by gay playwright and author Sachin Kundalkar that I saw in the auditorium of the same building.
Datar, stepped out of the closet in his own quiet way, and dealt with the theme of homosexuality in many of his plays like Ek Madhav Baug, Holi, Ek Mitrachee Ghost among others.
A tight deadline at work meant that I missed the staging of Ek... at the World Social Forum in the city some years ago. The Hindi version of Ek Mitrachee Ghost, which I caught at NCPA, seemed (to me) to deal with the subject in its own coy way.
My last Datar play was the gender-bending Jungle Mein Mangal. His take on Shakespeare's A MidSummer Night's Dream was a literal romp through the jungle with cross dressing actors, with the very Maharashtrian tamasha at its centre. Watching the play on the lawns of the Horniman Circle Garden, as Oberon and Titania, schemed and duelled in verse and song, was an experience the audience was unlikely to forget in a long time.
More on Datar:
Interview with Datar in Hindu: http://www.hindu.com/fr/2007/12/07/stories/2007120751570400.htm
Playwright Ramu Ramanathan on Datar: http://passionforcinema.com/goodbye-chetan-datar/#more-5301
Playwright Ramu Ramanathan on Datar: http://passionforcinema.com/goodbye-chetan-datar/#more-5301
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