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I have been told that in my early childhood I spent more time lying on a charpai behind the stage than in a regular bed, and that anybody who passed by covered me with whatever was at hand - shawls, sweaters, sheets, curtains... I lay buried under a mountain of clothes till the end of the performance, thanks to my well-wishers - actors, singers and stage-hands. There were times when I woke up and walked on to the stage, and the actors, unflustered, improvised a dialogue and I would effortlessly become part of the play that was being staged by the IPTA. My father, Bhisham Sahni, was the director, frequently enacting one or more roles. Other artistes included my mother, uncle, aunts and cousins, in short, our family - a happy boisterous one with hardly any possessions or even a roof above their heads, penniless refugees in a divided land.
The first great impact of traditional theatre, referred to many times in Bhishamji's writings, was the post-Bengal famine period in 1 944.
It was in those days that a small group of stage actors and actresses came from Calcutta and gave a performance in a cantonment hall in Rawalpindi. They had been giving performances in different towns earlier. I also went to see it. It was very different from all that I had been seeing earlier.
That was my first introduction to the Indian People's Theatre Association, popularly known as IPTA.
It was a street play, even though it had been performed on the stage of a cinema hall. It told the story of the Bengal sufferers; the performance was charged with intense emotion. There were no properties worth the name on the stage, bare cot on one side, a few tattered clothes hanging, a few pots and pans. It was virtually a bare stage.
An old man, holding a dimly lighted hurricane lamp entered from one side, exclaiming: 'Will you care to listen to what is happening in Bengal?'
Then followed a short play dealing with the plight of a family during the famine days.
I do not remember the plot. But I sat glued to my seat watching the performance, which lasted, I think, for an hour or so. When the play...