Playwright, director, actor, mentor, provocateur and iconoclast, Satyadev Dubey transformed Indian theatre through sheer force of personality, artistic rigour and uncompromising vision, leaving behind a legacy that continues to shape generations of performers. Khalid Mohamed remembers him today…  

Satyadev Dubey remains one of the most influential figures in Indian theatre history. Through his work as a playwright, director, screenwriter, actor and mentor, he nurtured talents such as Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Amrish Puri and Amol Palekar. Khalid Mohamed recalls his encounters with Dubey, exploring the genius, eccentricity and enduring legacy of a man who revolutionized modern Indian theatre and cinema.

The letter ‘A’ had become as essential as breathing for him at one point, for a practical, if somewhat flaky, reason: the later plays of his life would begin with an ‘A’ so that they would receive precedence over all other theatre productions advertised in the little classified columns of The Times of India, displayed in alphabetical order.

If Satyadev Dubey (1936–2011) was associated with a play or a film in any capacity, and it had evoked a negative review from me, he would come right over to the office, chortle for a while, then sashay away after threatening me menacingly: “Next time you do that, and I’ll gouge your eyes out.”

His salvos were often more funny than offensive.

A Critic’s Nemesis and Friend

Criticism he simply couldn’t digest—who can?—and he once went to the extreme of writing a column on the “butchers” of theatre criticism in The Evening News of India. Without naming me, he alluded to a critic who would waltz into press previews accompanied by an admiring group of gopis. Not true, certainly. Amusing, absolutely.

Residing for several years in Kala Nagar, Bandra East, he would invite himself to neighbours’ homes for lunch or dinner, paying for the meal with a volley of jokes and hilarious anecdotes about uber-famous celebrities. The padosis, in fact, awaited his unannounced visits.

Suddenly, sometime around 1970, he married Priya Adarkar, daughter of a prominent economist who had served as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Ms Adarkar was a translator, editor and writer. The marriage lasted barely a year, though some claim it survived only a day.

A free bird, from the moment I first heard about him in theatre circles, he could often be sighted nursing an afternoon beer at the Nataraj Hotel on Marine Drive. Once, spotting me nearby, he yelled out, “Come, come, I’ll buy you a beer or two, and it’s not a bribe.”

I nodded politely. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

The Taskmaster of Prithvi Theatre

Watching him rehearse a play with the then up-and-coming Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah at Prithvi Theatre was an education in itself.

He was entirely focused on teaching them the dos and don’ts of performance. The more people gathered to observe him at work, the rougher and more hectoring he became with his actors. Yet they adored him, eccentricities and all, because they recognized an unwavering devotion to perfection.

Tagged as an enfant terrible, perhaps that was merely a mask he wore to conceal a vulnerable streak beneath the transparent persona of a boy-man—immature in everyday behaviour, but fiercely committed when it came to the performing arts.

Less an icon, he was a pure iconoclast.

The Unpredictable Genius

When I stopped writing on theatre—I had merely been a temporary replacement for The Times of India’s official drama critic, Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni—Dubey phoned me.

At his trademark high pitch, he demanded, “Have you been sacked from writing on theatre or what? Restart right away. I’ll come and tell your editor if you want. You were fun and, I must admit, correct—mind you, only at times.”

I thanked him for the left-handed compliment.

Truly, I could never predict which way he would flip a coin, a hallmark of genuinely creative individuals. The day he became predictable would have marked his descent from grace, already endowed as he was with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and the honorific “Pandit” Satyadev Dubey.  

The last time I saw him was at a dinner hosted by the owner-editor of a short-lived arts magazine. A large piece of driftwood had been fashioned into a sofa by the editor’s wife, an interior decorator. It was uncomfortable as hell.

Dubey, naturally, refused to sit on it and staged a walkout. “Whatever this is, it’s hard as iron on my butt. Don’t call me till you get decent chairs.”

The hosts were distraught.

Curiously, the incident never found mention in the editor’s laudatory cover story on Dubey, who was described, tongue firmly in cheek, as a “Man of Iron.” 

Today, Dubey is perhaps not a familiar name to post-millennial audiences.

Fortunately, there is Shanta Gokhale’s invaluable volume, Satyadev Dubey: A Fifty-Year Journey Through Theatre, a compilation of essays, interviews, reviews and selections from Dubey’s prolific writings. It remains one of the most definitive assessments of his immense contribution to Hindi, Marathi and Kannada theatre.

Born into a traditional Brahmin family in Bilaspur, then part of Madhya Pradesh, he was orphaned early. Since his father owned a cinema hall, he was exposed to performance and filmmaking from childhood.

Gokhale notes that he sought emotional shelter in organizations like the RSS during his youth and even aspired to become a professional cricketer.

Instead, after moving to Bombay at sixteen, he joined St. Xavier’s College and immersed himself in English and Hindi theatre. 

The Anand Family and Theatre Calling

Providentially, he befriended Vijay “Goldie” Anand. 

Welcomed warmly by the Anand family, Dubey was encouraged to read, write and think seriously about drama. Cricket was forgotten.

Instead, he assisted Chetan Anand during the script development and pre-production stages of Taxi Driver (1954).

The next turning point came with his introduction to the legendary Ebrahim Alkazi and the Theatre Group.

Anxious to step out from under Vijay Anand’s shadow, he wrote the one-act play Thodi Der Pehle, Thodi Der Baad, adapted from J.B. Priestley’s Time and the Conways.

Soon he realized that Hindi theatre could become a powerful independent medium capable of competing with the largely comedy-oriented English theatre inherited from the colonial era.

Discovering and Nurturing Legends

One of his most celebrated productions was Dharamvir Bharati’s Andha Yug.

A young actor named Jatin Khanna was recommended for one of his plays. Cast as a mute soldier, the youngster performed competently but was dismissed for repeatedly missing rehearsals.

That truant actor would later become India’s first superstar under the name Rajesh Khanna.

Dubey’s gift as a teacher and mentor nurtured some of India’s finest performers, including Amrish Puri, Amol Palekar, Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah and Sulabha Deshpande.

Restless by nature, he staged Hindi translations of Girish Karnad’s Kannada masterpieces Yayati and Tughlaq, as well as Badal Sircar’s Evam Indrajit.

An admirer of Vijay Tendulkar’s Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe, he adapted the play into a film on a shoestring budget, aided by cinematographer Govind Nihalani.

Critics were often left speechless by Dubey’s eclectic range and fearlessness.

Cinema and Screenwriting

After Ankur, Shyam Benegal repeatedly collaborated with him as a writer on Nishant, Bhumika, Junoon, Kalyug and Mandi.

He also wrote for Govind Nihalani’s Aakrosh and Vijeta, as well as Mahesh Bhatt’s Vishwasghaat.

As an actor, he played an elderly priest in the opening moments of Nishant. Yet he is perhaps most fondly remembered by mainstream audiences as the dock worker in Deewaar who refuses to pay extortion money to the mafia.

Just months before his death, he told Rediff.com about a Marathi film he hoped to make titled Ram Naam Satya Hai.

“I think it will make a mark. Ram Naam Satya Hai may very well be my Ram Naam Satya Hai, but the point is there is always a desire to make a film,” he said.

“This too is in Marathi. It’s my commitment to Maharashtra. Somewhere it’s the Marathi people, and to some extent the Gujarati people, who gave me an identity. My teaching has flowered more amongst Marathi students.”

A National Award-winning screenwriter for Bhumika, he was also honoured with the Padma Bhushan.

The Contradictions of Dubey

Periodically, senior colleagues at The Times of India would warn me that Dubey was a “khaki-knickerwala”; some even labelled him Islamophobic.

Perhaps traces of ideology occasionally surfaced in his writing.

Yet Girish Karnad once told me: “Oh, he’s harmless. Shyam babu makes me or someone else rewrite any signs of prejudice and pedagogy. Like the character played by Amrish Puri in Bhumika. I would say Satyadev Dubey is far more at ease with theatre than cinema.”

Farewell to a Titan

A loner except when surrounded by theatre enthusiasts at the Prithvi Café, Satyadev Dubey suffered a massive epileptic attack there in September 2011. He remained in a coma for more than three months before passing away.

An advertising guru and theatre director remarked in a newspaper obituary:

“He was mad about theatre. He lived for that madness. His plays were ahead of their time. He gave a new direction to Indian theatre.”

Given all his perfections and imperfections, I still regret not sharing that afternoon beer with him at the Nataraj Hotel.

He might have dissed me, cursed me, even bitched me out.

Coming from Satyadev Dubey—the titan force of Indian theatre—that would only have deserved one response:

“Cheers, Dubey saab. Please do carry on exactly the way you always have.”