Director, producer, casting director, editor, actor, theatre maker, film maker, lyricist, writer is how he describes himself. The multi-talented Satchit Puranik, who works in multiple languages, is all this and much more. As for his theatre journey he has plays like KARL MARX IN KALBADEVI, LOITERING, AMMI JAAN, ADHBHUT and several others to his credit. Equally passionate about all that he does, Satchit shares his thoughts on theatre productions, his journey on stage and lots more.  By Jahnavi Pal What does your calling card read like? I have been asked this a lot of times either as a compliment, sarcastically and sometimes with a patronising attitude, but I am happy to set the record straight as people have even said that I have to still find my niche. After a lot of reflection I can say that probably on my calling card there should be things that I don't do at all which would be music and breath work! This is ultimately the focus about how one is leading one's life. After this I would include writing and film editing. Even if I am producing something like a documentary or a journal I think it is all an extension of writing. So when I am asked to choose only one I say I won't as all these forms are a relationship with how I look at time. For me the theatre is the present moment. It is how I value the present and what I am doing with a live audience and now even digitally and how I am responding to time. Its all about the present moment. As for editing its about how I look at the past as you are capturing something that has been caught and how you rearrange it and in the digital age a film will outlive you. For me cinema is my fascination with the past. As for writing it shows me my future. So when someone asks me whether I prefer the past, present or future I say they are all equally important to me. What is it that drives you? Music drives me and through all the other forms I am trying to find the musicality within them. At a very young age I realised I could surrender to music. I think had I pursued it earlier it would be my calling but I guess it's too late . One has to earn a living and film making it is. I just went with the flow and donned whichever hat that came my way. What is the biggest challenge you face in theatre? That's an interesting question. I would say it would be on the growing up level. It varies from show to show. There is an element of play in our day to day existence. So when play is done and the weekend is over and you go back to your day job there is a vacuum. Ultimately it becomes a structured existence. I believe that at some point we have not been able to transcend from the point when people get affected by what someone is doing on stage. I wish we found a way to carry that outside the safe place of theatre. It should be experienced for the possibilities it has. Which is that one play you are truly proud of? That's a tough one. I am proud of a lot of my works but the success of KARL MARX IN KALBADEVI is one of them. I got to live with the character and grew with it. At the international level I did a play called MAHABHARATA in Netherlands and since I was a nobody who went to the West and then after being inspired by Peter Brooke's MAHABHARATA and that happening at an age in my life was truly exceptional. Your experiment with plays has been largely limited to the 'arthouse' kind of plays. Don't you wish to do 'mainstream masala'? I see myself as a very commercial film and theatre maker. It's my appearance, this beard that I wear and my long hair that gives that impression. I always want to do things that make sense in my journey of life. I have done NOISES OFF with Atul Kumar which was hugely commercial or my play with Sunil Shanbag MARO PIYO GAYO RANGOON in Hindi and Gujarati is all for the masses. We now look at Shakespeare as arthouse but he wrote for the fisherfolk. Even Manoj Shah's work I find very audience friendly. I have wanted to do profitable work. If not profitable, atleast sustainable work. Whatever money has been put in should come back and that's the only way a business can work. Now that rules have been relaxed are audiences coming back to theatre? I would not want to judge them with this OTT advent or television because that is going to stay. In fact it will keep increasing with video games or probably robots coming home to entertain you and this may make things difficult. I agree its not safe yet to sit in a closed theatre space. But one has to return to the old normal sometime. What are your views on the current theatre scene? I can only speak on the Mumbai and Bangalore theatre scene as I have worked only in these two places. I can say its more dynamic now and though in Mumbai there is a over powering presence of celebrity culture in Mumbai theatre but with multiple theatre practices going on in different kinds of theatre spaces by amateur actors, professional actors its quite heartening. It's thriving in a more dynamic kind of way as space is a huge constraint and we still keep that lamp alight. What next? I want to continue the streak of merging fiction with non-fiction like I did in ADHBHUT and now am developing a script for Manoj Shah called TABIYAT in Gujarati. Then there is a play in English which I wrote for children where I only want to do a radio version and then a graphic novelish version which kids can then read. I have recently created a theatre game for children which can be downloaded. In the pandemic I have been working with a company called Building Conversations from Netherlands which is inspired by David Bohm's treatise Power of the human dialogue, which changed the world. How we articulate, how the thought expresses itself and as human beings we have not harnessed it enough so I am working on developing a protocol on how to slow down a conversation. *Jahnavi Pal is a journalist, writer and theatre buff read / post your comments More Interviews Neeraj Shirvaikar Ram Ganesh Kamatham Tannaz Irani Lillete Dubey Sharodiya Chowdhury and Sarthak Sharma Interview With Vishaal Asrani and Jiji Subhi BAKUL THAKKAR AND SURYA GOVLE Devendra Rao Interview Sharvari Lohokare Interview Vijay Kenkre Interview Trupti Thakkar and Ankit Gor Interview Aditya Rawal and Zahan Kapoor Umesh Shukla Interview Interview With Juhi Babbar Soni Mallika Shah Interview J BRANDON HILL INTERVIEW Anahita Uberoi Interview Interview with Jeff Goldberg Dr. Shweta Pendse Interview Interview with jamini Pathak Ashok Pandey Gagan Dev Riar Interview Taranjit Kaur Pankaj Pathakji Interview Vipul Vithlani Interview Saurabh Nayyar Interview Mukta Barve Interview Vihaan Samat Interview Vijay Kumar Interview Umesh Kamat Interview Jatin Sarna Interview Debanshu Shekhar Interview Vandana Bhushan Interview Vikas Bahari Interview Trinetra Tiwari Interview Anand Ingale Interview Deshik Vansadia Interview Kapil Dev Interview Arvind Gaur Interview Niketan Sharma Interview Ipshita Chakraborty Singh Interview Ramesh Talwar Interview Nivedita Bhattacharya Interview Jeff Goldberg Interview Ajeet Singh Palawat Interview Amitosh Nagpal Interview Ajitesh Gupta Anshulika Dubey and Aakash Prabhakar Ulka Mayur Shiv Tandan Interview Hemant Jha Interview Sangita Joshi Interview Akarsh khurana Interview with Parul Rana Satchit Puranik Interview Raell Padamsee Interview Simar Singh Interview Siddharth Randeria Interview Chandrakant Kulkarni Interview Trishla Patel Interview Danish Husain Interview Anju Makhija Interview Swati Das Interview Paromita Chatterjee Interview Akriti Singh Interview Vivek Raj Tandon Interview Avneesh Mishra Interview Imran Rasheed Interview Choiti Ghosh Interview Ila Arun & KK Raina Juuhi Babbar Sonii Interview Jay Upadhyay Interview Bhakti Rathod Interview Chandrashekhar Gokhale Interview Preeta Mathur Interview Denzil Smith Interview Rajendra Butala Interview Amitesh Grover Interview Vighnesh Joshi Interview Rajesh Deshpande Interview Mohammad Ali Baig Interview Dolly Thakore Interview M. 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Interview 2 Timira Gupta Jyoti Dogra Lillette Dubey Mahesh Dattani Chandan Roy Sanyal Sunil Shanbag (ii) Jairaj Patil Jehan Manekshaw K Raja Ravi Verma Sankar Venkateswaran Heisnam Tomba Hariharan Jamini Pathak Hilda David Satish Alekar Vir Das Ranjit Hoskote Om Katare Nipun Dharmadhikari Satyadev Dubey Dipan Ray Stefan Kaegi Zafar Karachiwala Dakxin Bajrange Makarand Sathe Ramu Ramanathann Cyrus Dastur Shekhar Sen Benjamin Juhel Chaitanya Tamhane And Sudeep Modak Sujata Mehta Asif Basra Barry John Nagesh Bhosale Astad Deboo Manhar Gadhia Sandesh Bhandare Usha Ganguli Sushama Deshpande & Suhas Joshi Jyoti Vyas Arundhati Nag Habib Tanvir Ramu Ramanathan Pushan Kripalani Harold Pinter Rajeev Ravindranathan Rajendra Gupta Viji Iyengar Sunil Shanbag Darshan Jariwalla Smriti Irani Atul Kumar1 Ashwin Gidwani Toral Shah Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal1 Shaili Sathyu Sanjay Narvekar Rohini Hattangady Dr. Ashok Ranade Vandana Sajnani Mahesh Elkunchwar Madhu Rye Mahesh Thakur Srimathi Madiman Kinnari Vohra Joy Fernandes C.K. Thakkar Jameel Khan Anupama Jayaram Lilelette Dubey Avatar Gill Dharmendra Gohil Rajesh Puri Kumud Mishra Kumar Shahu Meenal Patel Mujeeb Khan Anant Mudra Utkarsh Mazumdar Shekhar Sen1 Manav Kaul Rati Agnihotri Smita Jaykar Uday Chandra Rahul Da Cunha Atul Kumar Manoj Joshi Jaimini Pathak Boman Irani Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal Naseerudin Shah Joy Fernandez Kamlesh Mota Dinesh Thakur    Discussion Board

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