Early life and family
Panjatan was born inCareer
Panjatan started his career as an aviation engineer, however he left the city for Delhi in 1950 to pursue his passion for theatre and acting. He trained in Kathakali under Raghavan Nair and later under Narendra Sharma, a disciple of Uday Shankar. He started his career as an actor with the Hindustani Theatre, the theatre group of Begum Qudsia Zaidi. In 1957, he enacted a night theft scene in play ''Charudatta'', in which he used no dialogues. However, a review of '' Marg'' magazine, called it "..very good Pantomime", this intrigued him and ventured into learning the art form. Soon, he happened to see a local mime artist perform on the streets of Delhi, and in the next hour he learned all that he could from him, and started practicing and improvising on his own. He performed his first mime play in 1962 in Delhi, thus introducing mime to India in the 1960s, which earned him wide acclaimed. Hindustani Theatre closed and he began to focus mainly on mime, though he also acted in a few Bollywood films during this period, including K.A. Abbas's '' Saat Hindustani'' (1969), wherein he played a role of a Portuguese spy. Though trained in the Marcel Marceau style, he developed his individualistic style and language, and soon he started touring with his solo mime act. The Films Division also made some public service documentary with him, including ''Kilonewala'' (1971) and ''Six, Five, Four, Three, Two'' (on Family Planning), before he left for his tour outside India, to West Asian and European countries. After leaving India, he first performed at the Lahore Women's college and eventually reached Germany where he later settled, and has continued performing as a solo artist ever since. Over the years, he has acted in a few German and Hollywood films, ''Iron Sky'' and ''God is no Soprano'', ''Der Schuh des Manitu'' (Manitou's Shoe) (2001), ''Hans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairy Tale'' (2003) and ''Reclaim Your Brain'' (2007). He married Ingrid Sattler in 1975, and opened a mime school in Berlin, where he continues to live. He gave his last mime performance in December 2008 in Pune at the annual 'Theatre Beyond Words' festival organized byFilmography
Film
* ''Aasmaan Mahal'' (1965) * '' Bambai Raat Ki Bahon Mein'' (1967) - Sevakram * '' Saat Hindustani'' (1969) * ''Television
* ''Hans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairy Tale'' (2003, TV Movie) - FlunkyReferences
External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Panjatan, Irshad 1931 births Living people Indian male stage actors Male actors in Hindi cinema Indian mimes Male actors from Hyderabad, India Indian emigrants to Germany Indian male film actors