Opinion Nata Samrat
Shriram Lagoo was an actor par excellence. He was also more than that.
Slapping sedition charges on people for staging a play that allegedly insulted the prime minister, raising slogans and statements shows a deliberate misinterpretation of the law with the intent to curb dissent. 
Iconic performances in plays like Natasamrat, where he played a retired stage actor, had turned Shriram Lagoo into a legend in his lifetime.
Shriram Lagoo, who passed away in Pune aged 92, was primarily an artist of the Marathi stage. But his reputation, partly gained from the character roles and cameos he essayed in Hindi cinema, extended beyond the world of theatre. Iconic performances in plays like Natasamrat, where he played a retired stage actor, had turned him into a legend in his lifetime. For a host of peers, younger actors and directors, Lagoo had become a text book in acting and stagecraft.
A late entrant to professional theatre, Lagoo studied medicine in Pune, specialised as an ENT surgeon in the UK and practised as a doctor in Africa, before turning a full-time actor at the age of 42. In the 1970s, he established himself as a powerful presence on stage, working with directors such as Jabbar Patel, who also cast him in films such as Sinhasan. Theatre remained his first love, which he also used as a platform for dissent and dialogue. Both Lagoo and Marathi theatre benefited from their mutual attraction. Marathi theatre in the 1970s was an exciting space with a great talent pool of writers, directors and actors and many of the productions closely scrutinised the society and politics of those times. Lagoo, who identified with progressive causes, easily fitted in this cultural milieu.
Lagoo’s public life extended beyond the world of theatre and cinema. He engaged with social movements such as the anti-superstition movement of Narendra Dabholkar, who was murdered for his beliefs. Art was an extension of Lagoo’s political commitment and vice versa. The love and affection he received from his audience owes a lot to the lack of apparent contradictions between his life and work.
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