75 years of Triveni Kala Sangam

I have grown up in Triveni Kala Sangam. As a young boy of 12, in my blue khadi uniform and tousled hair, I remember walking down New Delhi’s Barakhamba Road with its many jamun trees to Tansen Marg. Here, I would order a plate of delectable melt-in-the-mouth shami kebabs, always served with a teekha mint chutney, and two aloo paranthas. This was my late lunch or maybe even an early teatime snack, which I wolfed down, worried about being late for my father’s rehearsals held across the road in Rabindra Bhavan.

The Mandi House Gol Chakkar was, and is, the cultural hub of Delhi, with over 30 auditoriums and galleries in close proximity. The Triveni interdisciplinary arts complex, founded in 1950 by Sundari K Shridharani, in its pristine glory in the mid-1960s, resounded with ghungroos and tabla bols from the kathak dancers on the first floor, and the dramatic leaps and turns by virile Manipur male dancers who accompanied Singhajit Singh and Charu Mathur in their wonderful Manipur dance productions.

I vividly remember seeing Om and Sudha Shivpuri and a very young Anuradha Kapur in the tense ‘Adhe Adhure’ and the delightful comedy ‘Kanjoos’, as also productions by Habib Tanvir and his spontaneous Chhattisgarhi actors in ‘Charan Das Chor’ and ‘Agra Bazar’. Even Shiela Bhatia’s Punjabi opera ‘Chand Badala Da’ was staged here.

Sitting under a star-studded sky — yes, you could see the stars in Delhi then — enjoying the cool breeze and being riveted by the performances was the ideal way for my fellow actors in Ruchika Theatre Group and myself to get a thorough grounding in performance.

Conversations about what we had just seen spilled over into our Fiats parked outside, and carried on the next day when we would chat with the warm and always friendly Mrs Puran Acharya. Artistes and musicians, dancers and rasiks thronged the cafe, arguing volubly and staying at the tiny Triveni tables for hours. We were to do the same as we entered college.

The spongy grass steps became our home every summer as Ruchika presented its experimental three short plays in a series called ‘Tryout’. From 1974 to 1985, we performed in the amphitheatre. I can still recall Sohaila Kapur in an absurd play ‘He Left Home’; Arun Kuckreja in Mohan Rakesh’s ‘Hmmm’; the frenzied sexuality of Alok Nath and Mona Chawla in Pinter’s ‘The Lover’… and perhaps the most memorable is the stark tragedy of ‘Striptease’ by Slawomir Mrozek that we staged two days after the Emergency was declared. The play revolves around two intellectuals thrown into a room together who then start receiving orders from a woman’s hand. First they have to don dunce caps and finally strip down to their underwear!

During this same period, Shridharani Gallery, with its unusual concave wall, saw a range of world-class exhibitions by the Indian masters such as MF Husain, Tyeb Mehta, FN Souza and Krishen Khanna.

Mrs Shridharani, with her collection of handwoven sarees from every corner of India and a champa flower tucked into her bun, graced every gallery opening. Her many years as a dancer at the Uday Shankar Cultural Centre in Almora reflected in her graceful movements and mudra-like gestures. She presided over Triveni with a steely courage, keeping standards high and not allowing the moral lassitude of other art centres.

Joseph Stein’s meticulously designed building gave a contemporary twist to its Mughal architectural elements. The jali work in ceramic tiles allowed the flow of air, keeping the premises cool. The stone-clad exterior reminds of a Mughal fort. The lotus pond, the asymmetrical placement of the entry hall and corridor, the lean lines of the staircase… all give the building its uniqueness.

The amphitheatre and the environs of Triveni lent itself to the use of unusual performance spaces. And the management was more than kind to make these available to a motley group of 20-year-olds! Arun Kuckreja’s ‘Tughlaq’ was played on the steps of the amphitheatre with the audience seated on the stage. My own productions of Vijaydan Detha’s ‘Odhni’ and Lalit Thapaliyal’s ‘Chimte Wale Baba’ played to intimate audiences below a champa tree. Mrs Shridharani even gave permission to stage a play against the canteen wall! This was a Soviet play, ‘Last Summer in Chulsmik’, with a cast of many young people who now reign over the art scene internationally. All of these were mounted as the day ebbed, the light faded and the acting area descended into darkness.

It was in the mid-1980s that my relationship with Triveni changed as my parents, Roshen and Ebrahim Alkazi, opened an exciting new gallery, ‘Art Heritage’, in the Triveni basement. It continues till today in the same location. The very first show of antique opium storage jars was designed by me at the Shridharani gallery — 80 pots strategically placed and dramatically lit in a grove of bamboo trees. Over the next 30 years, I did the display of all the sculpture and ceramic shows mounted by Art Heritage. I remember the elegant shapes of Kristine Michael’s ceramics, Gouri Choudhary’s sculptures, the massive doorways and urns of Daroz. I had been thrown into the deep end of the art scene and now counted many artists among friends. Childhood, adolescence and now adulthood — all spent in the exquisite environs of Triveni!

Several years later, when Triveni once again wanted to revitalise its refurbished amphitheatre, I was called on by Amar Shridharani. We performed our 19th show of ‘The Gathered Leaves’ 15 days before Covid-19 shut down the city. It was a memorable show. Minutes before we were to start, a heavy downpour started and we invited the entire audience of more than 100 to share the stage with us! In post-Covid Delhi, we returned to the amphitheatre to stage ‘Devyani’, a tale from the ‘Mahabharata’.

That Triveni had so much significance in my life became all the more evident when I wrote and published a murder mystery, ‘The Artful Murders’, with Triveni a key setting! No corpses in this building certainly, but a 62-year-old woman detective trapped in a lift! And an intriguing art opening.

More recently, our children’s drama classes have found a permanent place here. And I am happy to serve as one of the curators of the annual Triveni Theatre Fest. Evolving and morphing with the times has kept Triveni right at the centre of all the arts in the capital.

Arts