Balraj Pandit was a well-known Hindi and Punjabi playwright besides being a theatre director, poet, painter and a popular teacher. His ''Paanchwan Sawaar'' (पांचवा सवार) is considered a classic and a significant play of Indian dramaturgy. The play has been staged many times by different theatre troupes with actors like

Naseeruddin Shah Naseeruddin Shah (born 20 July 1950) is an Indian actor. He was notable in Indian parallel cinema and has starred in various international productions. He has won numerous awards in his career, including three National Film Awards, three Filmfa ...

Om Puri Om Prakash Puri, (18 October 1950 – 6 January 2017) was an Indian actor who appeared in mainstream commercial Hindi films as well as Urdu, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, English, Punjabi, Gujarati, Telugu, and Marathi films, as well as ind ...

and

Manohar Singh Manohar Singh (12 April 1938 – 14 November 2002) was an Indian theatre actor-director and character actor in Hindi films. He is best known for his performances in films such as ''Party'' (1984) and '' Daddy'' (1989). Starting his acting caree ...

among other playing roles. ''Lok Udaasi'' (ਲੋਕ ਉਦਾਸੀ) in Punjabi was another of his well-known plays besides ''Biwiyon Ka Madrasa'' an adaptation of

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world liter ...

's '' L'École des Femmes'' (''The School for Wives''). Panditji, as he was fondly called, graduated from

National School of Drama National School of Drama (NSD) is a drama school situated at New Delhi, India. It is an autonomous organization under Ministry of Culture, Government of India. It was set up in 1959 by the Sangeet Natak Akademi and became an independent school ...

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

in 1969. He studied theatre under such stalwarts as

Ebrahim Alkazi Ebrahim Alkazi (18 October 1925 – 4 August 2020) was a Saudi Indian theatre director and drama teacher. A rigid disciplinarian, he instilled in his acting students an awe and reverence that they still carry with them, with several of them ...

and then after a short stint of teaching in NSD he joined Theatre and Television Department at

Punjabi University Punjabi University is a collegiate state public university located in Patiala, Punjab, India, Punjab, India. It was established on 30 April 1962 and is only the second university in the world to be named after a language, after Hebrew Universit ...

in Patiala. He taught generations of students there till his retirement. He lived at

Patiala Patiala () is a city in southeastern Punjab, India, Punjab, northwestern India. It is the fourth largest city in the state and is the administrative capital of Patiala district. Patiala is located around the ''Qila Mubarak, Patiala, Qila Mubar ...

in Punjab until he died on 13 October 2006.

Plays

* ''Paanchwan Sawaar'' -The play talks about how a middle-class young man turns into the neglected ‘Paanchwan Sawaar’ hopeful of rising and making it big in life. The play was originally written and directed by the famous playwright Balraj Pandit. * ''Biwiyon Ka Madarsa'', adaptation of Molière's ''The School for Wives'' - A Hindi version of Molière's 17th century classical farce 'The School for Wives' by Balraj Pandit. * ''Lok Udaasi'' - The play is one of the most historic Punjabi productions written and directed by Balraj Pandit. * Adaptation of Premchand's story ''Kaffan'' * Adaptation in Hindi of Evam Indrajit, a play about the mediocre class. The play subtly points towards Satrean Existentialism and denotes that life is a circle with no ending, it ends where it begins, it is an endless road. * Translation of Uma Anand's ''Aao Naatak Khelen'' by Balraj Pandit http://59.177.81.15:8000/cgi-bin/gw/chameleon?sessionid=2012011217062524887&skin=nccl&lng=en&inst=consortium&conf=.%2fchameleon.conf&host=localhost%2b1111%2bDEFAULT&patronhost=localhost%201111%20DEFAULT&sourcescreen=INITREQ&scant1=Ao%20natak%20khale%20%2f%20Uma%20Anand%3b%20illustrated%20by%20Miki%20Patel%3b%20translated%20by%20Balraj%20Pandit.&scanu1=4&elementcount=1&t1=Ao%20natak%20khale%20%2f%20Uma%20Anand%3b%20illustrated%20by%20Miki%20Patel%3b%20translated%20by%20Balraj%20Pandit.&u1=4&pos=1&itempos=1&rootsearch=FREEFORM&function=INITREQ&search=AUTHID&authid=37503&authidu=4

National Book Trust National Book Trust (NBT) is an Indian state-owned publishing house, headquartered in Delhi, India, founded in 1957 as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education of the Government of India. NBT publishes reading material in several Indi ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pandit, Balraj Indian male dramatists and playwrights 2006 deaths Punjabi-language writers Hindi dramatists and playwrights National School of Drama alumni Year of birth missing Academic staff of Punjabi University