Amol Palekar is a director and actor. He also heads a theatrical group called Aniket. Paheli, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukerji, was one of his more recent films. Palekar remembers Vijay Tendulkar's work and speaks about his last few months with him.
I knew Vijay Tendulkar for more than 25 years. I had tremendous respect for his writing. And his honesty. We were very close but not always very friendly. I would argue with him a lot on many issues like specific words, lay out of a particular scene, his stage instructions etc. He was very insistent on the position he took. So was I. As a result, I never actually directed any of his plays. I also was not associated with his (theatre) group Rangayan.
But on a personal level, I had a very close day-to-day rapport with him for the last eight months or so, ever since he moved into a Pune hospital.
My work experience with him was really great. He was writing the screenplays for three of my projects -- one was Aakrit. He had such tremendous discipline about his writing. He would come to my house early in the morning and sit in a room for the whole day, or as long as he wanted, and write. We would have readings, arguments -- it was sheer excitement.
As a human being, he was a very complex, intense and blunt person. His silences added to his complexities. One had to read between the lines. Or probe him.
His zest for life, his passionate curiosity about human struggle and pain was too real. One does not find inconsistencies and confusions in his thoughts. His views on violence and the ideological positions he took, on several socio-political events, matched (consistently).
His compassion for social causes and movements was immense. He never sat on the fence on any issue which gave youngsters like us the inspiration to be forthright. Human beings and the painful journey of life was the focal point of his entire pursuit.
Till the last few months before his death, he kept on working. He was writing various articles, jotting down many thoughts and memories; constantly reading new literary work; catching up with news and events world over; he was viewing the work of young directors and commenting upon their writing; his days were full of people, news and
I would not like to comment about the few months of his sickness. I would not want to say that he was very frustrated with the medicines and the life support system. All that I can say is dying is more painful than death!
I met him almost on a daily basis whenever I was in Pune. He was not in a position to talk at length as his throat muscles were affected by myasthenia gravis. But he would write and communicate with everyone.
He was a visionary. He was completely disillusioned with the vultures who are our fraudulent politicians and our greedy system. He felt the system was getting oppressive and was marching towards its darkest mode.
The day he died I was with him till 2 am. He died at 7.15 am on Tuesday.
His death is a loss to theatre and literature. I wonder whether this loss will ever be recovered. I am glad I could do my share of archiving his entire body of work for the younger generation when my wife Sandhya Gokhale and I organised a Ten Festival in 2006 which went on for a week.
As told to Patcy N
