Pic by Subhendu Chaki

My family was very conservative. However my father was very supportive of me learning to dance. It was my first love and so as a child I took up Bharatanatyam.

In 1970, after appearing for my M.A. final examinations in Hindi literature, I began teaching the subject in a school. It was then that I heard that theatre group Sangeet Kala Mandir was looking for an actress to play the famous courtesan Vasantasena in Mitti ki Gaadi. That play was my initiation into the world of theatre.

But back in the ’70s there wasn’t much professionalism in theatre. With my training in dance, I found this lack of discipline very disturbing. So 35 years

ago, my husband Kamal Ganguly and I started Rangakarmee, our own theatre group. One of our greatest achievements has been breaking the language barrier since we perform in Hindi to a predominantly Bengali audience. Plays like Rudali, Court Martial and Kashinama have been the highlights in our repertoire.

In 2005, the response we got to Kashinama in Germany during the Theatre der Welt, the annual world theatre festival, was over- whelming. I can never forget the open house we had after our last performance with about 500 people in the auditorium discussing everything from theatre to Indian politics and religion.

Of my more recent plays, Bhor is very special for me. The experience of writing and directing the play gave me invaluable insights into the reality of drug addiction and rehabilitation. Recently, I’ve been re-creating and adapting Rabindranath Tagore’s plays. My latest production is Manasi, which is a play within a play and brings together modern women and the women of Tagore’s plays.

My life’s dream to set up a studio theatre (a small but fully equipped theatre space) also seems to be coming alive. We’ve acquired a place and I hope I will be able to start working on the technicalities so it’s ready for use soon.

(As told to Angona Paul)