Habib Tanvir

Many years ago, I saw a movie called "Prahaar". One of the characters was that of an old man, played by someone called Habib Tanvir. Few years later, I was in Bombay, when I heard about a theatre festival coming to town that was dedicated to Habib Tanvir. I recalled the old man from Prahaar, when I saw the promotions and I searched for him on the internet, only to realise that he was perhaps the greatest living theatre legend in India! How could I have been so ignorant I thought. I bought tickets to two of his plays - "Agra Bazaar" and his magnum opus "Charandas Chor". I watched "Agra Bazaar" and came out of the theatre almost awestruck! What creative brilliance - an entire "bazaar" and at least some fifty people, packed onto a small stage, creating the aura and conviction of an old market in the pre-independence era, complete with hawkers, folk songs, street fights, dancers, street performers...! It didn't seem like theatre, it was "Agra Bazaar"! Someone had managed to conceive this - the detailing, the language, the music, the interactions and made it so real, so unbelievably real - that was Habib Tanvir. I saw him in the theatre, an old, bespectacled man of eighty plus years, taking notes...I wondered what he wrote! I was already in awe of the man.

I had read that "Charandas Chor" was his best work till date, and that he would also be acting in it. However, something happened, and I could not make it for the play. I regreted missing it, but I told myself, I would certainly watch it at the next opportunity...or so I thought.

Habib Tanvir died today...and I will never see "Charandas Chor" with him in it!