Master technician of stage craft Mohan Maharishi dies

chandigarh, May 9

Theatre thespian Mohan Maharishi bid adieu to the worldly stage on Tuesday. A fine theatre actor, director and scholar, he received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for direction in 1992. A passout of National School of Drama, New Delhi, in 1965, he served as its director two decades later.

Born in Rajasthan’s Ajmer, Maharishi started his innings with amateur theatre in Jaipur and joined All India Radio soon after. He trained in NSD under theatre legend Ebrahim Alkazi. Part of its Repertory Company, he taught theatre at various places and also served as a cultural adviser to the government of Mauritius and started a youth theatre movement in Indian languages there.

Maharishi shared a strong bond with Chandigarh as he taught at Panjab University and spent considerable time in the city before heading back to Delhi, where he set up the Natwa Theatre Society.

The theatre legend wrote a number of notable plays, including Einstein, Raja Ki Rasoi, Joseph Ka Mukadma, Deewar Mein Ek Khirkee Rahati Thi and Ho Rahega Kuch Na Kuch.

He had also appeared in the historical series Bharat Ek Khoj as an actor. A master technician of stage craft, theatre-goers recall his productions for their lyrical beauty. “Theatre is an art form, which has a direct relationship with the living impulses of a given society. It is so because not only is its site of exhibition social but the site of doing theatre, unlike other art forms, is also social,” wrote Maharishi.