A moment from Giribala. Picture by Pronab Basu. (below) Datar

Some 25 plays later, Chetan Datar is still enamoured with his first play Saavlya (Shadows), written at the age of 21. The play established him as one of the most promising Marathi and Hindi language dramatists. t2 caught up with Datar at Rabindra Sadan, where he staged Giribala on the concluding day of Rabindra Utsab.

Your rendition of Giribala is quite different from Tagore’s eponymous short story...

Yes, I had to rethink it because the original story was too naazuk (delicate). To expand it into a full-length play would cause it harm. So I set it in 19th Century Mumbai with the reformists as members of the Prarthana Samaj.

What themes attract you as a playwright?

Being a sick child, I would be constantly surrounded by women. Aunts, cousins, their friends and my grandmothers used to chat around me and I would listen to them. So it was women that I knew the most. Women of all ages — how they speak, think, react…. All that has gone into my dialogues and choice of themes.

You began your career with Satyadev Dubey. What prompted you to leave him?

I never left Dubey; he will always be my mentor. I trained under him for 12 years, acting and writing. But I began to feel suffocated. So I accepted a theatre documentation project of the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA). This needed me to watch more plays and I left the NCPA to do theatre full-time. I gradually became a part of Awishkaar, founded by Arvind and Sulabha Deshpande, Vijay Tendulkar and Arun Kakade.

What comes next?

The National School of Drama is doing my adaptation of Phansalkar’s black comedy on death, called Ram Naam Satya Hai.

And I am busy with another adaptation for Sunil Shanbag — Brecht’s Three Penny Opera. I have set it in Mumbai with an NRI returning to his hometown to write a book. It’s Mumbai of the 1960s because there isn’t a trace of morality in the present. In the Sixties, even criminals followed certain rules. I have used the Tamasha form which allows one to comment on anything, anytime.

What is your impression of Calcutta?

I have performed here thrice before — Wada, Virasat and Jungle Mein Mangal. I know so many people and I have seen productions at the Nandikar festival. It’s great to be back!