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

Vishal More (left) plays Deshpande’s take on Dawood, Sakharam Binder’s friend, in a scene from the play

Pula Desphande's love for Pune and Dadar is well known. In one of his famous readings of his essays, he would remark, "There is nothing you cannot find at Lakshmi Road, Pune or Ranade Road, Dadar. Then again, anything unavailable in Pune or Dadar is not worth finding." Yet, when Vijay Tendulkar's Sakharam Binder came under attack by the conservatives across the state, including Pune and Mumbai, Deshpande drew the line.

A moment from the performance

Typically, it was with a work of subtlety, humour and tongue-in-cheek 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. "I grew up with PuLa Deshpande," the 48-year-old former alumnus of Ramnarain Ruia college recalls. This fascination with the personality only grew with his interest in theatre. "In 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 Binder."

Actors prepare their lines during rehearsals

Written in 1974, the play was a reaction to the objections raised against Tendulkar's eponymous production. What drew Satpute's attention was the absence of details. "Usually, 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 before," he says.

Vijay Tendulkar

Deshpande's play takes Tendulkar's plot and flips it on its head. Where Tendulkar builds on Sakharam's abrasive nature and moral depravity, Deshpande turns him into an aspiring spiritual guru. Both, understandably, poke fun at the hypocrisy of society. "You 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 staged," Satpute remarks, adding, "PuLa 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, "Is this moral enough for you?'"

One tool that the author uses to emphasise this hypocrisy is language. Sakharam Binder was infamous for the expletives Tendulkar used freely. "I found the language in PuLa's 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 wants," Satpute points out.

Pu La Deshpande. Pic Courtesy /Wikimedia Commons

It 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 regions.

Mangesh Satpute

50 years can be a long time. Does the play lose out its context, aside from the Sakharam Binder connection, we ask? "No," the director emphasises, "The 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 address," he concludes.

ON Today; 7.30 pm
AT Godrej Dance Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point.
LOG ON TO ncpamumbai.com; in.bookmyshow.com
COST Rs 450 onwards

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