Passion for the curtain call

Aanjjan Srivastav, Actor
The history of IPTA begins with him. He has seen seven to eight generations of actors, writers and directors. Along with the late theatre personality RM Singh, he accelerated the IPTA movement through the country, including the backward areas.

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He arrived from Karachi before Partition, and used to run a tailoring shop. He would tell me the difficulties they faced during those times when even buying two chairs for the rehearsals was a big task for them. He epitomised what is called realistic acting. This is something I imbibed while doing Wagle Ki Duniya. We are paying tribute to him at Prithvi Theatre today (Monday). I am honoured to essay his role in Shantranj Ke Mohre.

M S Sathyu, Filmmaker and art director
A K Hangal was able to differentiate between theatre and cinema styles of acting. All of us at IPTA will miss him. He used to prepare before stepping on stage. He did not like anyone to disturb him, when he was preparing for a play. Theatre for him was serious business. He was ideologically also very committed to the Left movement.

Rakesh Bedi, Actor
He was committed to the IPTA movement since Quit India days. For him, theatre was work.

He was known for his punctuality. It was a pleasure to learn about IPTA movement from him even though, for the last few years he was homebound due to health reasons and unfortunately could not see my IPTA play, Massage.

Compiled by Shaheen Parkar