MUMBAI, July 15: Vijaya Mehta has finally broken her silence on the controversy over her allegedly high-handed behaviour and wanton neglect of Marathi theatre as the executive director of the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA). She has demanded to know if it was proper for theatre personalities to be associated with the NCPA only for its ``dates.''Rubbishing the charge that the NCPA theatre's dates weren't being granted to plays in Indian languages, Mehta, in a letter to theatre bigwigs, has said: ``There are more than 50 producers, but only four Saturdays and Sundays a month. So the dissatisfaction of not getting dates will surely come everyone's way. But is it right for theatre people to be bothered only about the dates?''Leading personalities of Mumbai's theatre fraternity had, at a meeting held on June 23, criticised Mehta's style of functioning and attributed the various ills plaguing NCPA to her ``inactivity.'' Mehta's position as NCPA director has now come up for review after thecompletion of a five-year tenure. The manner in which Mehta recently sacked two of NCPA's permanent employees, Sucharita Apte and Chetan Datar, had also attracted considerable criticism. Referring to this, Mehta countered: ``How did it not dawn upon the critics that no matter what the medium, I've worked all my life with Marathi associates? How could the Marathiness of just these two people then have caused problems to me?''She said after the project on which Apte and Datar were working got over, they were given a new responsibility, but they refused to accept it and there was no option but to issue notices to them.Irrespective of the meagre earnings of the institute by way of selling tickets, Marathi plays are duly paid a fixed amount, she noted. Saying that NCPA's experimental theatre is open for all producers, Mehta questioned if the decline in the number of experimentals was the NCPA's fault or the result of a fall in such productions. She added: ``Communication can't be established by organisingcourt-marshal-type meetings. Those in the field of theatre should realise that such meetings only create barriers.''
