This play by PuLa Deshpande is returning to Mumbai after 50 years

Pula Desphandersquos love for Pune and Dadar is well known In one of his famous readings of his essays he would remark ldquoThere is nothing you cannot find at Lakshmi Road Pune or Ranade Road Dadar Then again anything unavailable in Pune or Dadar is not worth findingrdquo Yet when Vijay Tendulkarrsquos Sakharam Binder came under attack by the conservatives across the state including Pune and Mumbai Deshpande drew the lineA moment from the performanceTypically it was with a work of subtlety humour and tongueincheek satire titled Bhagwan Shri Sakharam Binder Five decades after it was written director Mangesh Satpute is taking the play now retitled Mad Sakharam for the stage on tour bringing it to Mumbai this evening ldquoI grew up with PuLa Deshpanderdquo the 48yearold former alumnus of Ramnarain Ruia college recalls This fascination with the personality only grew with his interest in theatre ldquoIn 2018 I was working on a comedy production when I came across a collection of PuLa Deshpande plays Amhi Latike Na Bolu It was in this compilation that I found Bhagwan Shri Sakharam BinderrdquoActors prepare their lines during rehearsalsWritten in 1974 the play was a reaction to the objections raised against Tendulkarrsquos eponymous production What drew Satputersquos attention was the absence of details ldquoUsually such compilations offer a timeline on the first staging or production of the play This had no such information The more I tried to find out the more it sparked my curiosity After discussions with several senior theatremakers I learned that it had not been staged ever beforerdquo he saysVijay TendulkarDeshpandersquos play takes Tendulkarrsquos plot and flips it on its head Where Tendulkar builds on Sakharamrsquos abrasive nature and moral depravity Deshpande turns him into an aspiring spiritual guru Both understandably poke fun at the hypocrisy of society ldquoYou must look at the play as a reaction and in context of the uproar against Sakharam Binder during the period It was also perhaps the reason it was never stagedrdquo Satpute remarks adding ldquoPuLa did not see himself above the people ever yet he would not stand for hypocrisy He could laugh at them and with them as though asking ldquoIs this moral enough for yoursquordquoOne tool that the author uses to emphasise this hypocrisy is language Sakharam Binder was infamous for the expletives Tendulkar used freely ldquoI found the language in PuLarsquos work fascinating He uses complex Sanskritised Marathi for the most inane actions It is pure as a language but makes Sakharam sound pretentious and hypocritical You cannot help but laugh at such a person and suddenly you realise who it is aimed at That is precisely what he wantsrdquo Satpute points outPu La Deshpande Pic Courtesy Wikimedia CommonsIt took over two years and the hiatus of the pandemic before Satpute and his team could put the production together With a cast led by Sunil Jadhav Kiran Rajput and Vishal More the production is presented by theatre and film personality Sonali Kulkarni Incidentally Kulkarni played Lakshmi in the run of Sakharam Binder alongside Sayaji Shinde Over the last few months they have already toured Pune Nagpur Satara among other regionsMangesh Satpute50 years can be a long time Does the play lose out its context aside from the Sakharam Binder connection we ask ldquoNordquo the director emphasises ldquoThe play is not set in a specific time or place It is all the more relevant today The hypocrisies it pokes fun at still exist That is what theatre must addressrdquo he concludesON Today 730 pmAT Godrej Dance Theatre NCPA Nariman PointLOG ON TO ncpamumbaicom inbookmyshowcomCOST Rs 450 onwardsAlso ReadPrithvi Theatre Festival Here are The Guides top picks that you can indulge in this year