Theatre doyen Raj Bisaria dies at 89: ‘A teacher par excellence’

Actor and film writer Atul Tewari, who worked with Bisaria for 49 years says, “It is one thing to be good at something, but to teach it to so many is another thing. Raj Bisaria was a teacher par excellence, a poet, a director, and many other things.” “He decided that the Hindi heartland should have a drama school and it was his resolve that gave Lucknow the famous Bharatendu Natya Akademi,” the 65-year-old Tewari said, adding that Bisaria had an eye for beauty. “He was a very tasteful man. He wanted to find and have beauty in everything,” Tewari said.

Bisaria passed away on Friday at his Lucknow residence in Gomti Nagar and people from the theatre community reached the Bharatendu Natya Akademi on Saturday to pay tribute to the maestro. Bisaria (89), who died after a prolonged illness, is survived by wife Kiran and daughter Rajina. He was cremated on Saturday in Lucknow.

His notable contribution to the world of theatre was Bharatendu Natya Akademi, established in Lucknow in 1975, which became the country’s second drama school after the National School of Drama (NSD).

The theatre icon was a professor of English at Lucknow University and had been awarded the Padma Shri in 1990. He also published a collection of poems in a book titled “I am not the gardener”.

Bisaria was also awarded with the Yash Bharti, UP Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and Rashtriya Kalidas Samman. His well known students include film actors Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Rajpal Yadav, among others.
The theatre community and Bisaria’s followers have described his passing as the loss of a visionary who infused sophistication into the art of theatre.

“Bisaria sir was something else. He had so much aura around him. Everyone who has been associated with the field of acting and arts has come across his work. He has been a mentor to many and was a visionary for north Indian theatre,” said Bhupesh Rai, a theatre personality in Lucknow and the organizer of annual Repertwahr Festival for Performing Arts in the capital of Uttar Pradesh.

Surya Mohan Kulshreshtha, veteran theatre personality and actor who has recently worked in Manoj Vajpayee-starrer Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai, mentioned that Bisaria was the one who formalized the concept of teaching acting.

“When Bisaria sir started the Theatre Art Workshop in 1965, people would make fun of him saying that it is a car repair shop being called a workshop. But what he did in those workshops transformed so many actors and people working behind the stage in the theatre world. He modernized theatre, and proved the earlier notion that actors are born wrong. Earlier, whether you were an actor or not was decided at the time of birth. But Bisaria sir changed this. He convinced the world that acting could be taught by methods and training in workshops and at school,” said Kulshreshtha.