Remembering Mohan Maharishi: ‘We have lost one of the most important directors of contemporary India’

How Mohan Maharishi followed his heart to enter theatre and created pathbreaking plays

Maharishi graduated from NSD with a first position in direction in 1965 (Source: NSD)

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When he was the Director of the National School of Drama (NSD) in Delhi, Ebrahim Alkazi once caught a student sneaking out of a class. When the boy said that the lesson was boring, Alkazi surprised him by agreeing. He took the student to his office, offered him coffee and handed him a copy of Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House. That night, the student stayed awake and read. The next day, he filled half-dozen pages with his thoughts and gave these to Alkazi. The Director’s office called a sudden meeting of all students and staff in the afternoon. There, before everybody, Alkazi read out the notes written by the student and marked him out as a thinker.

The student was Mohan Maharishi, who passed away after a long illness in Delhi on May 9. He was 83. Maharishi belonged to the generation that emerged out of NSD, was trained by Alkazi and spread out across the country creating and teaching theatre. Others of the era include Ram Gopal Bajaj, Om Shivpuri, Sudha Shivpuri and Maharishi’s wife and classmate Anjala Maharishi. “He was a rare person because he was a mix of an artist, pedagogue, teacher and communicator and all these facets were available to his students, colleagues, friends and other artists. It was always stimulating to spend time with him. He was a playwright of works (such as Einstein, Raja Ki Rasoi and Joseph Ka Mukadma) for which he carried out research and responded to literature and contemporary situations. We have lost one of the most important directors of contemporary India,” says Anuradha Kapur, theatre director and former Director, NSD.

Heartbroken to hear the news about #MohanMaharishi A fine director & scholar. Forever indebted to him to give me a chance to collaborate on his play #MainIstanbulHoon based on the novels of #OrhanPamuk Condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, collaborators & students. 🙏🏽💔 pic.twitter.com/40jUCRIPX3

— Danish Husain । دانش حُسین । दानिश हुसैन (@DanHusain) May 9, 2023

Maharishi graduated from NSD with a first position in direction in 1965, was Director of the institute from 1984 to 1987 and made countless groundbreaking productions. His Evan Indrajit, which was created for Delhi-based Yatrik theatre group, was the first time the Badal Sircar play was being adapted to Hindi. He was also the first to make Kelu Janmejaya, by Adya Rangacharya of Karnataka, in Hindi with a translation by BV Karanth., titled Suno Janmejaya. Other important plays are Einstein, which was an exploration of the Theory of Relativity, and Raja ki Rasoi, a criticism of corruption. Maharshi was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Direction in 1992. The present Director of NSD, RC Gaur calls him a “great director, actor, writer and educator who contributed to theatre academics”.

In 2007, Maharishi happened to read Orhan Pamuk’s Memoirs and was so impressed with the Turkish writer’s prose that he went through all his works. HIs next thought was to make a play on Pamuk. Main Istanbul Hoon (2008) was a part-fantasy production that opened to mark 50 years of NSD. Other works included Deevar Mein Ek Khidki Rehti Thi (2013) and Vidyottama (2015). While the former was based on a work by Vinod Kumar Shukla that won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999, the latter revolved around the fictional wife of Kalidasa. “She challenges Brahmanical aesthetics and suggests that theatre must do more than provide ananda; it must present reality even if this is unpalatable,” Maharishi had said. In keeping with Maharishi’s interest in time travel, Vidyottama also crosses centuries to come to India in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya gangrape case and experiences gender harassment.

Mohan Maharishi sir…#RIP pic.twitter.com/eIApG3QAGT

— Vani Tripathi Tikoo (@vanityparty) May 9, 2023

Maharishi was born in Ajmer, Rajasthan, and was a part of amateur theatre in Jaipur when All India Radio opened there. AIR was a cultural institution of the time. Radio made Maharishi famous and also honed his diction, among others. The elegant language would be Maharishi’s hallmark till the end.

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He would say that he had no idea what was in store when he came to Delhi to join NSD except that he wanted to work with Alkazi. Theatre was not an ideal choice of profession so Maharishi simply followed his heart. Kamalakar Sontakke, his junior at NSD, gave Maharishi the nickname of “The Great”. “He was very friendly and I had a deep appreciation for his dramatic understanding as well as expression and interpretation of good works. I had the good fortune of acting with him in almost all the plays of NSD of the time, starting with Oedipus Rex that was made for a studio theatre,” says Sontakke.

Sontakke adds that one of Maharishi’s major contributions was his association with the Mauritius government as cultural advisor between 1973 and 1979. “He started theater training in Mauritius, directed plays and designed courses for training as well as helped the government on cultural policies. He brought a couple of plays to India in a cultural exchange scheme from Mauritius,” says Sontakke. “He was also the head of the Department of Department of Drama at Chandigarh. He created a model inspired by NSD, but was not a copy of it. Instead, he designed it to suit the local requirements. Whatever he did was of such rich quality that I was right in calling him ‘The Great’,” he adds.

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Dipanita Nath

Dipanita Nath is interested in the climate crisis and sustainability. She has written extensively on social trends, heritage, theatre and startups. She has worked with major news organizations such as Hindustan Times, The Times of India and Mint. ... Read More

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