Just what the doctor ordered

Sooni Taraporevala Screenwriter, photographer, and filmmaker Sooni Taraporevala has directed this staged reading. Pic/ Natasha Hemrajani

In my opinion, [Dr Albert Schweitzer] was probably the greatest human being [to have lived] in the latter part of the 19th century, till well past the middle of the 20th," Dr Farokh E Udwadia, a physician, Padma Bhushan awardee and author of books such as Tabiyat: Medicine and Healing in India and Other Essays, tells us over the phone. He had known about and admired the Alsatian-German theologian, medical missionary and humanist for a long time, but it suddenly dawned upon him to write a tribute piece. The result is Oganga, written about a year ago, about Schweitzer who lived and worked as a doctor in the jungles of Equatorial Africa. Oganga is the term for ‘healer', used by the locals to address him.

Two people, Dr Udwadia tells us, encouraged him to write this play about Schweitzer: The first, a young patient who is unfortunately no more; and the second, screenwriter, photographer, and filmmaker Sooni Taraporevala who has also directed this staged reading. "It was written with the intention of being performed so that people got to know of a man like him. He is not very well known among ordinary people," he admits. "I personally connected with the fact that here was a man who looked after people who were the least cared for and loved and in desperate need of help. What an example, I thought, in a world which is mainly ruled by power and money."

Dr Farokh E Udwadia Physician, Padma Bhushan awardee and author Dr Farokh E Udwadia had admired Schweitzer for a long time, connecting personally with the way he looked after people who were the least cared for and in desperate need of help

Sooni Taraporevala traces her association with Dr Udwadia back to 1975 when she was sick and in hospital for nearly a month. "Dr Udwadia saved my life," Recalling his many kindnesses, she shares, "I was applying to go to America." He would come every day and talk to me about it and about what novels I was reading. After I got out, he did house visits to our flat on the fourth floor with no lift. A few months later when I miraculously got admission to Harvard, he called my parents and me to his house for dinner to meet his brother, a geologist visiting from California. At the time not many students went to America.

Years later, while working on her book Parsis: The Zoroastrians of India - A Photographic Journey, she remembers following Dr Udwadia around with her camera and observing how caring he was towards his patients. She read his books, attended his lectures and admired the humanism and compassion at the centre of what he did. It was on his and Jim's [Sarbh] insistence, she admits, that she became the play's "accidental director" when the pandemic finally allowed Dr Udwadia to ready the piece. "I understand his motivation for writing it," she says, "and I fully see the similarities between the two doctors, but I think if you come to the performance, you will understand Dr Schweitzer's life even if you don't know anything about Dr Farokh Udwadia. He has written it in such a way that it conveys very movingly how amazing this man was."

Apart from their medical and humanitarian interests, a point that unites the author of the piece and his subject is their shared love for music. "Music is a great healer and has a great effect on the mind. It was known and practised for a long time, particularly during the 1914-18 war, when it was used to help wounded soldiers get better," says Dr Udwadia who has written on the links between music and medicine. Schweitzer was a great exponent of the organ, particularly the music of Bach, and resultantly the piece is interspersed with the German composer's music. "I am passionately fond of music. I play the violin, and Bach is one of my great favourites too," he says.

Taraporevala who has directed films such as Little Zizou and the recent Yeh Ballet for Netflix, shares that the crucial and nerve-wracking difference she experienced between directing films and a staged reading was that the latter is live. "In films, you can cut and edit," she laughs, explaining that her directorial duties here have involved the management of people, lending Dr Udwadia an ear and offering feedback wherever needed. She also points to actor Jim Sarbh's contribution to the project, noting, "I give all credit to Jim, who is a theatre veteran, had excellent ideas and should rightfully be co-director with me".

WHAT: ‘OGANGA!' - A Tribute to the Life of Dr Albert Schweitzer
WHERE: Tata Theatre, NCPA
WHEN: July 10, 7 PM
FOR: Rs 500 onwards