In the balmy air drifting a few kilometres offshore from Juhu beach stands a pleasant 200-seater auditorium built in memory of a man who, despite being a big screen legend, had dedicated his life to theatre.

Prithviraj Kapoor didn’t survive to see his last wish take off, but his youngest son has taken up pen and paper to chronicle the urge that burnt within him to see a thriving theatre podium, 25 years after its inception.

At 66, Shashi Kapoor finds himself busy recollecting a gallery of faces close to his heart and deeply etched in memory. His father, who steered Prithvi Theatres, one of the first professional Hindi troupes in India. His father’s contemporaries, who were stalwarts on stage in their times. And his wife Jennifer, who shared with him a zest for theatre.

Strolling down memory lane, Shashi is digging out 60 years of history — from 1944 when Prithvi Theatres was born, to 1978 when he and Jennifer built the auditorium, and its 25-year run changing various hands.

“It was my father’s last wish to set up a theatre auditorium. After his death in 1972, Jennifer and I took the initiative to set the ball rolling and the building took off in 1978,” says Shashi, who is being helped by his stage actress daughter, Sanjana, in the project. “I am just helping him to put in the visuals,” says Sanjana from Delhi.

Set up by Kapoor Sr, Prithvi Theatres was a company that travelled through the country and performed plays with a group of 150 actors, stagehands, cooks, writers and technicians. After debuting with Shakuntala, the troupe strengthened its repertoire with a string of socio-political plays like Deewar, Kisaan and Paisa.

The yet-to-be-titled tome — to be published a month later by Roli Books — is being spiced up by Shashi with personal anecdotes and Calcutta does occupy a large share of his mind and print space.

For instance, the house on Hazra Road where Shashi Kapoor was born and even lived for some time. “My father was employed at B.N. Sircar’s New Theatres in Tollygunge, where he worked for about seven to eight years. He had a close bonding with theatre veterans from Bengal and was a good friend of Shambhu and Tripti Mitra,” says Shashi, who remembers the first time Prithviraj Kapoor brought his troupe to Calcutta. “… 1951. A cinema hall was turned into a stage to hold the play.”

The trip to Calcutta he took with his father some years later, in 1956, is also fresh in mind.

“Father had come down to stage a play for the second time. It was in New Empire… Is it still there?” he asks, bemused.

Next moment, the talk veers to Jennifer. “It was during this trip that I had met her in Fairlawn.”

Ever since, Shashi has made it a point to put up in Fairlawn Hotel every time he is in Calcutta. “I have always loved that place,” he adds fondly.

And no, the address is not 36 Chowringhee Lane.