Dutt, Beyond the Theatrics
Utpal Dutt On the Theatre Publisher: Seagull Books, Calcutta Printing Years: 2009, 2022 ISBN: 978-8-1-7046-251-4 Price: 499/- Pages: 201 As I read the book I recalled watching him as Dhurandhar Bhatawdekar – a few years ago, Few questions also came up, How well read was he? How the hell did he manage to recall so much! How did he see where we were headed? Was he that ahead of his times? How could he have been such direct, frank and yet so popular? How broad and deep was his repertoire? But then he was at best an enigma - someone who worked closely with Ghose, Sen and Ray, was a Shakespeare scholar, and yet known to many of his generation for his roles as a 'comedian' in Hindi cinema! Dhurandhar Bhatawdekar was just one of the many such roles. Some lines from the book – that have stayed, On Shakespeare Urdu alone, of all Indian languages, can capture fully the sound-quality of Shakespeare’s verse. The decline of interest in Shakespeare in our times has been brought about by