New memoir revisits two Mumbai families who resurrected theatre

It was at a horseshoeshaped dining table in 1943 that the story of English theatre in Bombay was first scripted and with that the fate of two families the Padamsees and Alkazis A group of college students led by the enigmatic Sultan Padamsee gathered around the unusuallooking table which only boasted of curves and no edges in the sprawling flat of Kulsum Terrace in Colaba Causeway to discuss how they would start what theyrsquod simply call the Theatre Group This was the beginning of a journey that would have farreaching consequences on the world of art and theatreItrsquos not surprising then that Feisal Alkazi the son of theatre veteran and former director of the National School of Drama Ebrahim Alkazi opens his new book Enter Stage Right The AlkaziPadamsee Family Memoir Speaking Tiger with this episode Itrsquos a curtainraiser to a grand story of two of the greatest theatre familiesWhere it all began the horseshoeshaped dining table in Kulsum Terrace as it is today Pics courtesyAlkazi Theatre Archives and Enter Stage Right The AlkaziPadamsee Family Memoir Speaking Tiger by Feisal AlkaziDelhibased Feisal who is an educationist activist and theatre director having directed over 200 plays in Hindi English and Urdu began working on the book early in 2019 after he was approached by Renuka Chatterjee of Speaking Tiger to pen a family memoir ldquoFor some strange reason though I had written books before it had never crossed my mind to write one of this nature I mulled over it for about six to seven weeks before meeting Renuka againrdquo For the next few months Feisal wrote ferociously dipping into memories of his time in Bombay spent at Kulsum Terrace with his grandmother Kulsumbai and later at Vithal Court in Cumballa Hill before he and his sister Amal moved to Delhi after their father joined NSD ldquoIn the beginning of last year after I had completed most of the chapters I went back to Mumbai revisiting many of the places where this story kind of began My cousin Ayesha Sayani the filmmaker had done these wonderful video interviews with my uncle Alyque Padamsee my mother Roshen aunt Candy Khorshed Ezekiel poetplaywright Nissimrsquos sisterinlaw and Gerson da Cunha They were fantastic She had them all transcribed and given to me saying lsquoThey are all yoursrsquordquo says Feisal in a telephonic interview This was also important he adds because the book goes back a generation to his grandparentsrsquo time before exploring his parentsrsquo early beginnings in the world of theatre and art ldquoThe first 10 chapters happen before I am bornhellip That Sayanirsquos videos helped me fill in a lot of the blanks which I had about the 1930s and 40srdquoKulsumbai Roshenrsquos mother and Feisalrsquos grandmother becomes the wheel driving this story forward mostly because her role seems indispensable in her childrenrsquos early years which eventually shaped their love for the arts She was the second wife of Jaffer Ali Padamsee and belonged to a wealthy and progressive family from the Khoja communityThe Padamsees with the three sonsinlaw Deryck Ebrahim Hamid and Alyque Padamsee standing from left to rightShe was ldquodetermined to give her children the best possible English educationrdquo ldquoAs each child reached the age of four they were sent off to an exclusive elitist residential school in Bombay itself Here they rubbed shoulders with royalty the Scindia boys Princess Diamond and Princess Pearl of the Rajpipla familyrdquo he writes in the book Feisal agrees that Kulsumbai inevitably became the protagonist of this memoir otherwise peppered with so many dynamic characters ldquoAnybody who ever encountered her would feel the same I didnrsquot put this in the book but when MS Sathyu was trying to finish Garam Hava he didnrsquot have money and turned to my grandmother She gave it to him and he took it forgetting that she is a businesswoman And then she said lsquoItrsquos 25 per cent interest a monthrsquordquo he laughs ldquoShe was a very tough nut to crack What was beyond belief for me was how she dealt with her sons who married women they slept with and that too in the bedroom next to her While she was okay with them being her sonsrsquo girlfriends and calling her lsquomummarsquo once they were married she didnrsquot allow them into the house It was something I found so unjust and incorrectrdquo he shares ldquoBut that made her a strong influence If you read Alyquersquos book Double Life you will learn that his mother was the woman who inspired Lalitaji in the Surf commercial Itrsquos interesting when you think of how could such a strong woman emerge in that time and deal with quite a philandering husband Alyque suggested his father had eight mistresses over the years and decide at some point to pack her bags take all her children get into a boat and go to England for their education That was quite a formidable decision for a woman to take in the 1930srdquoShe recoiled when her eldest son her ldquogolden boyrdquo Sultan known otherwise as Bobby died by suicide after taking an overdose of sleeping pills He was just 23 ldquoI donrsquot think the family ever came to terms with his death My mother always said lsquoThose who the gods love die youngrsquo but thatrsquos not a clear answer at all Till very recently being gay was considered taboo So one wonders what it was like for Bobby to be gay then My aunt Candy told me recently lsquoThe problem with my mother Kulsumbai was that her extended family had a lot of gay menrsquo So while it was an open secret nobody knew who his partners were When he died the family gave out a story that he was killed in a car accident That was considered most acceptable thenrdquoFeisal AlkaziA significant part of the memoir however is dedicated to Feisalrsquos parents Alkazi and Roshen Alkazirsquos father was from Saudi Arabia he travelled to colonial Bombay for better business prospects Alkazi who was a close friend of Bobbyrsquos took over the reins of the Theatre Group after his passing away and later married his sister whom he had fallen in love with The couple separated when Feisal was eight years old but their association didnrsquot end as Roshen continued to design costumes for his shows In 1977 when they were in their fifties they even opened the gallery Art Heritage together and later set up a home in Kuwait Alkazirsquos partner Uma Anand never disturbed this equation they shared ldquoThey met each other in their late teens So they had grown up together and gone through formidable circumstancesShe was so much his intellectual companion all the way through because she was so bright and dynamic and had an enquiring mindrdquo shares Feisal ldquoI think my parents had great respect for each other Also the family ties were very close Even when he moved in with Uma he was never kept away by the extended Padamsee family The same was with my fatherrsquos family He also never tried introducing Uma to either of the households or even us My parents were always seen as a couple Perhaps that helped Looking back it was never a broken relationship though unusualrdquo Tragic genius Bobby Padamsee at home in Bombay with his trophies 1944While Feisal says that his mother was a strong influence in his life his father was conspicuously absent during his growing up years ldquoIt is a conversation I later had with him because I think itrsquos very important for children to have their father around Did I hold it against him Well quite frankly he had made a choice and I will just say that I respected it I never had illwill towards his partner Uma I realised from my own experience that you are in a oneparentfamily and itrsquos not the end of the world at allrdquoWhat he was consciously aware of when writing this memoir was that he didnrsquot want to make it a ldquonoholdsbarredrdquo book ldquoI didnrsquot want any skeletons to come tumbling out of this book I am not that kind of person and I believe that everyone has the right to their private life I feel that lsquowhat happens in the family should be kept within the familyrsquo So while certainly this isnrsquot a censored account there are many stories that havenrsquot been told and I donrsquot intend to tell themrdquo