Veenapani Chawla’s chance encounter with Naseeruddin Shah culminated in the birth of the Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre and Research in Puducherry, famed for its audacious experiments in innovative and progressive theatre. Khalid Mohamed recalls the uncanny journey of his friend at Bombay University, who chose to pass away quietly in 2014, at the age of 67, leaving behind a one-of-a-kind legacy.

Veenapani Chawla remains one of the most influential figures in Indian experimental theatre, redefining performance practices through Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre and Research in Puducherry. From pioneering productions of Greek tragedies like Oedipus Rex and The Trojan Women to integrating Koodiyattam, Kalaripayattu and Dhrupad into contemporary theatre language, her legacy continues to inspire theatre practitioners, scholars and audiences across India and internationally, cementing her place in the history of modern Indian theatre.

“Must tell you of this taxi driver, quite a handsome fellow with a cleft in his chin. My friend Arvind (Rane) and I take his cab every day from Santa Cruz to town. One day, I had to travel alone. When we were at a red light signal around Bandra, he turned around and said, ‘Roz toh aap ek daal chawal ke saath jaati ho, kabhi mujhe bhi chakhiye, main asli mutton biryani hoon’.”

Instead of being offended that the cabby was making a lewd pass, she guffawed delightedly that it seemed to be too seductive an offer to refuse. Only she had fibbed to him, “Sorry, I’m vegetarian.”

That was Veena, Veenapani Chawla (1947–2014), who was then studying for her second master’s degree in political philosophy from Bombay University. I was into my first year of Masters. She always had this combo of intimidating gravitas and an irrepressible sense of ribald humour.

Her closest bestie, Indira Dayal, completing her Ph.D degree, and I were an odd trio. We’d be grim-faced when Professor Usha Mehta, former freedom fighter, would be conversing with us on the tenets of Karl Marx and Engels. As soon as Ms Mehta would leave the library located in the glorious Rajabai Tower, Veena and I would break into a mad fit of giggles for no reason. Indira would frown, “Both of you need to be locked up in a madhouse.”

I write of Veena today, without pegging it to her birth or death anniversary. But because of the invaluable mark she has left on India’s experimental theatre of the most original and progressive kind, which lives on—thanks to her devoted colleagues Vinay Kumar K.J and his wife Nimmy—at the Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre and Research in Puducherry, a mecca for cross-disciplinary stage performances.

Now, if I may narrate the story of the extraordinary Veena Chawla in a linear manner, and do her an iota of justice, it went like this. Her parents, from West Punjab (now in Pakistan), after the Partition, had found a pretty but unfussy ground and first floor of a villa in the back-lanes of Santa Cruz. This was rented from a landlord who lived with his family in the adjoining wing. Her father gained employment as an officer at a textile company, her mother was a homemaker. Neither knew what their daughter would spring on them next. She had refused to marry a suitable boy, who’s a big-time industrialist today.

With her parents, as a child, she would visit the Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, as it was called then, and had been profoundly influenced by Sri Aurobindo and his collaborator Mirra Alfassa, aka The Mother. Theirs was a life-affirming philosophy, synthesising Vedantic wisdom with modern evolutionary thought.

Veenapani would never talk about this ‘influence’ but at most would hand me copies of their texts like Savitri and The Human Cycle. Incidentally, Nolini Kanta Gupta, the senior-most disciple of Aurobindo, a renowned philosopher and linguist, had altered her name from Veena to Veenapani, which belongs to Goddess Mahasaraswati, representing the power of perfection and knowledge.

The name-change and the texts went over my head, and she’d laugh that musical laugh of hers, “Dumbo! That head of yours must be crosswired.” She’d hand me copies of translations of the 19th century French writer Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, written in verse, and The Princess Faraway.

And when I joined The Times of India, she was thrilled, often tagging along when I went to interview film personalities. At a party, she had chased Amitabh Bachchan for a conversation, who had imposed a press ban then. He had brushed her away with a terse contact-my-secretary. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing,” she had purred bemusedly.

Then came a turning point, I think, when I was commissioned by Debonair magazine for an in-depth interview with Naseeruddin Shah. I had asked her to intervene when and if Shah went silent, which he did. That’s when she brought up the Greek tragedy Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, which is traditionally viewed as a tragedy of fate and divine punishment of a son; an oracle had predicted that he would kill his father and marry his mother. On the contrary, she interpreted the classic as a testament of self-realisation and spiritual growth.

Shah had surmised, “You seem to know a lot about theatre and plays. Why don’t you direct Oedipus yourself?” For once, she looked nonplussed, to which the actor remarked, “Look, what do I earn money for by acting? I’ll be in the play and if you need any investment, depend on me.”

Thereon, much to the annoyance of her father, her home became a hang-out for aspiring actors and technicians. Oedipus was staged in 1981 at Prithvi Theatre, with Naseeruddin Shah in the title role, Deepa Lagoo, Ratna Pathak Shah and Arvind Rane among the ensemble cast. With minimal lighting and white-sheet costumes, the stage play was a tremendous success, which ran for 25 shows instead of the expected five, establishing her as a strong voice in contemporary theatre.

Next, two years later, a memorable production again at Prithvi of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Stoppard’s text follows two courtiers who strive to understand the tragedy of Hamlet from the wings and are thoroughly confused. This was used by Veenapani as a metaphor for the existential questions of identity, ambiguity and uncertainty.

The cast comprised Naseeruddin Shah, Kenneth Desai, Aditya Bhattacharya, Shiv Kumar and Nandita Thakur. The costumes, more elaborate now, were designed by our friend Indira Dayal. During a performance something historic as well as strange happened. Shah did not leave the stage or return to the green room and remained in the performing space during the unannounced interval, as he was instructed to by the director.

The audience thought the play was over and returned home. Yet the show was resumed for a scant few people left in the auditorium. Chastened, Veenapani never included an interval in her stage productions again.

Followed in 1984, an adaptation of Euripides’ Greek tragedy The Trojan Women, on the destruction of the city of Troy in the wake of the beautiful Helen’s elopement with the Prince of Troy. The Mayurbhanj Chhau—a blend of folk-dance form from Odisha.

The dialogue, declaimed in the form of lamentations, was used for the first time, hooked on the intricate interaction between shadows and lights. Toplined by Sushmita Mukherjee, Neena Gupta, Javed Jaffrey and Sohaila Kapoor, the set designs and music were handled by Arvind Rane, who had by now chucked up his lucrative job at an ad agency to become a support system to Veenapani. Performed at Prithvi and the National Centre for the Performing Arts, it was acknowledged as a game-changer in India’s theatre.

Now associated with a hybrid aesthetic, she subsequently used elements from Sanskrit theatre’s Koodiyattam, Kalaripayattu martial arts and Dhrupad singing.

Meanwhile, I was enmeshed in the pressing deadlines of journalism and Indira Dayal was now Indira Randhawa after marriage. Yet whenever we would meet, Veenapani was always that larkish, playful buddy, once startling us with her resolve to campaign for the construction of public toilets for women.

“Imagine, I had to find a stationary truck at Worli somewhere and relieve myself like a dog as discreetly as I could.” Sagely, Indira advised her to concentrate on her theatre work rather than turn into a placard-waving social activist.

For years she taught English literature simultaneously at the Ramakrishna Mission School, Khar, once telling me of one of her students, Aishwarya Rai, “She’s so so gorgeous, she’ll be in your Bollywood for sure.”

Circa 1993, by investing all her life savings, and with eventual backing from the Ford Foundation, the Charles Wallace India Trust and India Foundation for the Arts, Veenapani set up the Adishakti Centre at a near-wasteland on the outskirts of Pondicherry.

Doggedly, she designed it into a utopia dotted with cottages for in-house teachers, one for herself, a strikingly spacious stage for performances, a hostel for students and a cavernous canteen-cum-kitchen. A swimming pool was set up with the passage of time, to practise breath control for the students of the short and long-term classes there.

I could go on and on about her prolific oeuvre of avant-garde plays performed at the Centre’s theatre space, open to the local audience for free. Suffice it to state that she was honoured for theatre direction with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (2000), the highest national recognition for practising artists.

A comprehensive book The Theatre of Veenapani Chawla: Theory, Practice and Performance (2014), edited by the eminent critic Shanta Gokhale, included a DVD of her complex play The Hare and the Tortoise, and the scripts of her productions, Impressions of Bhima, Brihannala and Ganapati.

A feature film by Santosh Sivan was also nearly completed, with her consultation, at the Adishakti campus. Of the cinematographer-director, she had exulted, “Just an hour’s conversation with him leaves me exhausted, just can’t keep up pace with his brilliance, I guess.” She did mail me rushes of the footage and it’s a pity that they have been shelved, without exposure to even a cognoscenti audience.

The unkindest cut: she left me devastated for an entirely another reason. Veenapani would visit Mumbai sporadically, once she said to be there for my birthday. Covertly, she would take off for a doctor’s appointment, waving those visits off as, “I have this persistent cold and shortness of breath. These too shall pass.” She did seem to be okay, with her alabaster complexion, uncreased face, forehead stamped with a red tikka, kohl-lined eyes and her ever-balletic gait.

And then around noon of November 30, 2014, I got a call from Vinay, sobbing, “She has left us.” She had passed away at a private hospital in Puducherry, following a massive heart attack, attributed to pulmonary embolism. Those appointments with a doctor in Mumbai had been caused by a blood clot blocking a lung artery. The funeral rites were about to start, and what could I do but lock myself in a room, benumbed, foggy-eyed. Obviously, she wanted to leave us, her friends, without fretting or fussing over her. Oh, my Veena, Veenapani, how could you do this to Indira and me, us the inseparable trio at the Rajabai Tower library?

Months later, Indira, now based in Chandigarh, emailed to say, “Khalid, we haven’t ever talked of the way Veena went away. Perhaps she didn’t want us to grieve. Do let me know if you want to talk about it ever.”

In fact, this piece is my articulation of the selflessness of a friend, who must have been in pain, but didn’t want us to share it at all with us. That was yet another successful experiment, only this time her audience were her two closest friends.

Veena, Veenapani, that friend who could be infinitely amused over a taxi-driver enacting the role of a mutton biryani, the incensed woman who would threaten to lobby for public toilets for women, and wow the normally tough-to-impress Naseeruddin Shah halfway through a magazine interview, lives on in every crevice of our hearts and minds.

And every year, Vinay Kumar K.J and his wife Nimmy dedicate a festival of plays to their mentor. Last year, the festival marked the 44 years of the ongoing creative pursuit of Adishakti she had started from scratch, and nurtured with strict discipline and unshackled freedom, which came as naturally to her as a mother’s love for her children.

And so recurs the image of Veenapani Chawla feeding me a chocolate cake on my birthday, her impending mortality cloaked by her beautiful mind.