MY FATHER'S STORY - AMAL ALLANA

CAPTURING THE LIFE OF SUCH A LEGEND IS NO EASY TASK, ESPECIALLY WHEN HE IS FAMILY. EBRAHIM ALKAZI’S DAUGHTER DONS SEVERAL HATS HISTORIAN, FAMILY MEMBER AND OBJECTIVE OUTSIDER TO PEN A NO-HOLDS-BARRED MEMOIR THAT PRESENTS BOTH THE GUTS AND GLORY OF THE FATHER OF MODERN INDIAN THEATRE

- SHASHI SUNNY

At 672 pages, it’s a mammoth read, but what else can you expect when chronicling the life of the doyen of contemporary theatre in India? This is the individual who transformed the National School of Drama into a premier training institute, groomed stalwarts like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Rohini Hattangadi and Ratan Thiyam among others, directed over 50 plays, and still found time to promote budding artists, including family friend and frequent collaborator, MF Husain. Ebrahim Alkazi’s life was truly a fabulous act.

It is no easy task to capture the life of such a legend, especially when he is family. Yet Alkazi’s daughter, Amal Allana, pens a compelling narrative in Ebrahim Alkazi: Holding Time Captive, published by Penguin Vintage.

A LABOUR OF LOVE

As a child, student, inheritor and now biographer, theatre director Amal says she played all these roles in writing the book on her father, a powerful and enigmatic personality with startlingly fresh ideas for the cultural and theatre milieu he belonged to. In describing her approach, she explains that it hinged on the context she was addressing.

“When I referred to Alkazi’s work,” she notes, “it was mostly from an objective point of view, as a person interested in theatre history. When I spoke about his relationship to members of his family, or my mother… then I wore my daughter hat. If there were things he was in conflict with… then I was the objective outsider. I mainly talk about him in these three registers. I must add, that these flowed organically from one to the other, they were not deliberated.”

The endeavour that Amal undertook was a labour of love, presenting challenges on multiple fronts. “The real challenge,” she reflects, “was what to include and what to leave out because my father enjoyed a long, exciting and productive work life.”

‘TO WATCH HIM WAS TO LEARN’