Mahesh Elkunchwar (born 9 October 1939) is an Indian playwright and screenplay writer in
Marathi language
Marathi (; , 𑘦𑘨𑘰𑘙𑘲, , ) is a Classical languages of India, classical Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra and is also spoken in Goa, and parts of Guj ...
with more than 20 plays to his name, in addition to his theoretical writings, critical works, and his active work in India's ''
Parallel Cinema
Parallel cinema, or New Indian Cinema, is a film movement in Cinema of India, Indian cinema that originated in the state of West Bengal in the 1950s as an alternative to the mainstream commercial Indian cinema.
Inspired by Italian Neorealism, ...
'' as actor and screenwriter. Today along with
Vijay Tendulkar, he is credited as one of the most influential and progressive playwrights not just in
Marathi theatre, but also in
Indian theatre. In 2014, he was awarded the
Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour in performing arts in
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
.
Early life and education
Born to a 9th generation
Telugu Brahmin
Telugu Brahmins are ethnic-Telugu people, Telugus who belong to Brahmin communities native to the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. They fall under the Pancha-Dravida, Pancha Dravida Brahmin classification of the Brahmin community in ...
migrant family in Parwa village in
Vidarbha
Vidarbha (Pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, �id̪əɾbʱə is a geographical region in the west Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Forming the eastern part of the state, it comprises Amravati Division, Amrav ...
region of
Maharashtra
Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...
, at the age of four he had to leave his parents and leave a city where he grew up a lonely child and hardly interested in studies, and raised outside of Indian urban centres. As films and theatre were taboo in his family, he saw his first play when he moved to
Nagpur
Nagpur (; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Nāgapura'') is the second capital and third-largest city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is called the heart of India because of its central geographical location. It is the largest and most populated city i ...
for his matriculation. Here he studied at Morris College, and went on to do M.A. in English from
Nagpur University. While still in college came the turning point in his life, when one day he went to watch a film and unable to get a movie ticket, he ended up watching a play. That play was a veteran theatre director
Vijaya Mehta's production of
Vijay Tendulkar's ''Mee jinkalo mee Haralo'' (I Won, I Lost) in 1965. Deeply influenced by the play, he went to watch play again the following day and decided to write plays. He devoted the next year to reading plays of all kind.
Career
He taught English literature at Dharampeth Arts, Commerce College, Nagpur and M. P. Deo Memorial Science College, Nagpur, until retiring as its Head in 1999. He was a guest professor of screen play-writing at the Film and Television Institute, Pune in 2000–2001. He taught as a visiting professor at the National school of Drama, New Delhi for a number of years.
Elkunchwar has experimented with many forms of dramatic expression, ranging from the realistic to symbolic,
expressionist to
absurd theatre with theme ranging from creativity to life, sterility to death and has influenced modern Indian theatre for more than three decades.
[ Elkunchwar emerged onto the national theatre scene with the publication of his one-act play ''Sultan'' in 1967 in noted literary magazine ''Satyakatha''. This play was immediately noticed by Vijaya Mehta; she went on to direct four of his early plays, including ''Holi'' and ''Sultan'' in 1969 and 1970 for ''Rangayan''.][ A number of commercial hits followed such as ''Holi'' (1969), ''Raktapushpa'' (1971), ''Party'' (1972), ''Virasat'' (1982), and ''Atamkatha'' (1987).
Considered a successor to Vijay Tendulkar,][ Elkunchwar's plays are written in ]Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
**Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...
, the Indian language that is spoken by approximately 90 million people. The plays have been subsequently translated into multiple Indian and Western languages (including English, French and German).
In 1984, his play ''Holi'' was made into the film ''Holi
Holi () is a major Hindu festival celebrated as the Festival of Colours, Love and Spring.The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) p. 874 "Holi /'həʊli:/ noun a Hindu spring festival ...".Yudit Greenberg, Encyclopedia of Love in World ...
'' by Ketan Mehta
Ketan Mehta (born 21 July 1952) is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter who has also directed documentaries and television serials since 1975.
Early life and education
Born on 21 July 1952 in Navsari in Gujarat, Mehta did his sch ...
, for which he wrote the screenplay. In the same year, Govind Nihalani
Govind Nihalani (born 19 December 1940) is an Indian film director, cinematographer, screenwriter and producer, known for his works in Hindi cinema, particularly the movement of parallel cinema. He has been the recipient of six National Film Aw ...
directed a film, ''Party
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...
'', based on his eponymous play. Sonata (2017), a film starring Aparna Sen, Shabana Azmi and Lilette Dubey was based on Elkunchwar's eponymous play.
A lesser known fact about him is as Mahesh Elkunchwar, the essayist. His collection of essays 'Maunraag' has broken new grounds in this genre and was considered the book of the decade in 2012. An uncanny blend of autobiographical and meditative, His essay show his erudition and a vivid imagination.
Plays by Mahesh Elkunchwar
* Rudravarsha (The Savage Year), 1966
* Sultan (one act), 1967
* Zumbar (one act), 1967
* Eka Mhatarachya Khoon (An Old Man's Murder, one act), 1968
* Kaifiyat (one act), 1967
* Ek Osad Gaon (one act), 1969
* Yatanaghar (The Chamber of Anguish), 1970
* Garbo, 1970
* Vasanakand (The Episode of Lust), 1972
* Magna talyakathi
* Party, 1976
* Wada Chirebandi (Old Stone Mansion), 1985
* Pratibimb (Reflection), 1987
* Atmakatha (Autobiography), 1988
* Magna Talyakathi (The Pond), 1991
* Yuganta (The End of an Age)
* Wasanani Jeernani (Tattered Clothes), 1995
* Dharmaputra (Godson), 1998
* Sonata
In music a sonata (; pl. ''sonate'') literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cantare'', "to sing"), a piece ''sung''. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until th ...
, 2000
* Eka Natacha Mrityu (An Actor's Death), 2005
* Raktapushp
Other works:
* Maunraag : collection of essays, Mouj Prakashan
* Paschimprabha : collection of essays, Chakshu prakashan
* Baatcheet : Interviews, Rajhans Prakashan
* Saptak : lectures, Rajhans prakashan
* Tribandh : Three essays, Mouj Prakashan
* Vinashavela ( translation ) Mouj Prakashan
Awards and recognition
Elkunchwar's plays have gained national and international critical attention, and his growing body of work has become part of India's post-colonial theatrical canon.
Some Important Honours, Awards :
# Sangeet Natak Academi Award – 1989
# Nandikar-1989
# Maharashtra Gaurav –1990
# Maharashtra Foundation for ‘Yugant” –1997
# Sahitya Akademi Award
The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...
for his Trilogy Yugant
# Saraswati Samman -2002
#Janasthan 2011
# Brittingham Visiting Scholar, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA in 2005
# Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship2013
# Kalidas Samman 2014-2015
# Go. Ni. Dandekar Puraskar 2016
# Vinda Karandikar Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar- 2018
Works in translations :
*
Collected Plays of Mahesh Elkunchwar Volume I: Oxford University Press 2008
Collected Plays of Mahesh Elkunchwar Volume II : Oxford University Press 2011
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elkunchwar, Mahesh
1939 births
Living people
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Marathi-language writers
Recipients of the Saraswati Samman Award
Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Marathi
Marathi theatre
Writers from Nagpur
Maharashtra academics
Dramatists and playwrights from Maharashtra
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian male writers
Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship