First published on 24 October 2025
Paying tribute to Alkazi on his birth centenary, theatre artist Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry and art historian Parul Dave Mukerji speak to Gayatri Sinha about his transformative journey from the stage to the gallery. While Chowdhry reflects on his contributions to theatre pedagogy as director of the National School of Drama (NSD), Mukherji discusses his pioneering role in visual art curation and scholarship through the Art Heritage gallery and its publications.
Conversation with Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry
Gayatri Sinha: When Alkazi entered NSD in the early 1960s, what do you believe were the specific aspects of pedagogy that he addressed -- the principles of training he drew upon and communicated to his students?
Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry (NMC): Ebrahim Alkazi’s pedagogical innovations fused Konstantin Stanislavsky’s psychological realism with the aesthetic principles of the Natyashastra, creating a hybrid framework that remains foundational to modern Indian theatre training.
The syllabus he crafted emphasized a correlation of visual, acoustic, literary and movement-based disciplines, where sets were not merely backdrops but characters in their own right.
As Director of NSD from 1962 to 1977, Alkazi democratized access by diversifying student cohorts and mandating regional-language productions. He integrated traditional performance arts such as Bhavai and Yakshagana, fostering a spirit of cultural pluralism.
He underlined that theatre was not a hobby class, but a valid profession, to be approached with the same seriousness as studying law or medicine. He stood by the dictum: “Theatre is not a dilettante pursuit.”
Another significant contribution was shifting performing arts training from the entrenched guru-shishya parampara to a formalized, institutional system. This created a pivotal rupture in how artistic knowledge was transferred, marking a decisive moment in the history of Indian theatre education.
GS: Alkazi’s internationalism and his understanding of Indian tradition appear to have gone hand in hand. How do you believe he successfully communicated cultural nuance and understanding to both his students and audiences?
NMC: With his uncompromising vision, Alkazi transformed theatre from a polite drawing-room diversion into a visceral confrontation with history, identity and power.
He seamlessly combined the roles of teacher, director and institutional leader, attaining near mythic status in the theatre world. He re-evaluated not only European theatrical legacies but also Asian and regional traditions. His role in shaping a modern Indian theatre sensibility is undeniable. Even his most critical detractors acknowledge this influence.
His work embodied the radical spirit of the times. Through rigorous questioning, disciplined training, storytelling, spatial exploration and mythic reinterpretation, he redefined modern Indian theatre. Above all, Alkazi challenged entrenched assumptions, reformulating them with freshness and intellectual clarity.
He directed over 50 plays -- each a masterclass in audacious fusion. Productions such as Oedipus Rex (1964) and King Lear (1964) were reimagined for Indian sensibilities, humanizing mythic figures while remaining faithful in their universal value system and moral compass.
GS: How did Alkazi stand apart from other ‘sons of the soil’ directors like B.V. Karanth, K.N. Panikkar and the much younger Ratan Thiyam? How does theatre today reflect his broad and complex legacy?
NMC: Alkazi stood out from these other directors through his cosmopolitan institution-building approach. He blended Western modernist techniques with Indian narratives to create a professional national theatre framework.
While the theatre of roots movement emphasized decolonization through the revival of regional folk, ritual and classical traditions, Alkazi’s focus lay in discipline, innovative stagecraft and urban proscenium productions inspired by global influences and avant-garde styles. His training at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and his tenure at NSD informed this professional ethos.
In contrast, B.V. Karanth immersed himself in Kannada folk forms like Bayalata and Yakshagana, adapting them into contemporary theatre, as evident in productions like Hayavadana. His work reconnected urban audiences to regional and vernacular impulses, while Alkazi sought a pan-Indian synthesis.
K.N. Panikkar revived Sanskrit theatre through Kerala’s Kutiyattam and ritualistic performance modes, interpreting classical texts like Bhasa’s Urubhangam with stylized movements, traditional music and an iconography rooted in ancient art forms. His theatre embodied the ethos of the postcolonial roots movement, while Alkazi’s remained secular, modernist and national in scope.
Ratan Thiyam, an NSD alumnus mentored by Alkazi, developed a distinctly Manipuri idiom that combined martial arts (Thang Ta), dance (Rasleela), and narrative forms (Wari Leeba, Pena) in productions like Chakravyuha and his Mahabharata trilogy. While Thiyam localized theatre to a regional, ritualistic vocabulary, Alkazi’s legacy was in building the institutional and pedagogical scaffolding that made such experimentation possible.
GS: Can you reflect on your most loved Alkazi production, and how it influenced your own journey as a theatre director?
NMC: Look Back in Anger -- Alkazi’s landmark production of John Osborne’s modern classic -- profoundly influenced my journey as a director. I remember sneaking into late-night rehearsals during my days as an NSD student, and sitting under the great banyan tree at Meghdoot Theatre to watch the repertory stalwarts practice their voice exercises and develop their critical faculty in analyzing the characters they were portraying. I was a first-year student then -- awestruck and clueless, yet instinctively aware that I was witnessing something seismic.
That play stayed with me. Manohar Singh as Jimmy Porter, raging with elegant violence. Uttara Baokar as Helena, turned an ironing press into a weapon, her sarcasm sharp as acid. Surekha Sikri, brittle and devastating as Alison, her silences louder than any dialogue. Delhi audiences queued for hours to watch the play in the intimate 80-seater at Rabindra Bhavan. Its emotional charge left audiences weeping quietly into handkerchiefs. I would watch the crowd as intently as I watched the stage -- two performances unfolding simultaneously: one illuminated, one in darkness. Ten shows in, I still wanted more.
That production became my true training ground. I learned to read composition, rhythm and the inner arc of character. It was a masterclass in craft, structure and emotional integrity.
GS: By the early 1980s, NSD and its Repertory began losing talent to cinema. Those who made the shift included Surekha Sikri, NeenaGuptaandRohiniHattangadi, among others. Do you believe theatre has ever regained the respect and popularity it once enjoyed?
NMC: Theatre has always existed, and it always will, no matter how many alarm bells are rung. Yet, it is a given truth that theatre cannot sustain one financially, unless one is part of a commercial company. It demands hard work, sweat and unrelenting dedication. Acting for cinema and acting for the stage are guided by the same principle -- love for one’s art.
Survival often forces artists to seek alternatives. I do not wish to get into any moral posturing regarding the choices some have made, since I know that a life without financial sustenance can destroy both the artist and the art.
Theatre, unfortunately, remains the “child of a lesser god” in the arts hierarchy. While it continues to inspire and endure, it struggles against the glamour and financial rewards of cinema and television. For theatre to truly flourish, both its economic structure and public perception must change -- through funding, audience engagement and cultural repositioning, that gives live performance the same prestige as the visual and literary arts.
Conversation with Parul Dave Mukherji
Gayatri Sinha (GS): You have edited Alkazi’s biography and are now going through the many volumes of the Art Heritage catalogues and magazine. These were generated over a period of at least three decades and probably constitute the single most consistent body of publications by an art agency in the country. In reading the essays, what is your overriding sense of the critical mass generated by a single gallery?
Parul Dave Mukerji (PDM): At a time when the centre of the art world in Delhi revolved around Triveni, it was impressive of Alkazi to build an alternative space and platform through Art Heritage gallery and its magazine of the same name. I am struck by his overarching vision and focus on not just on the main modern art mediums like painting and sculpture, but also his inclusion of photography and printmaking. The period when the Art Heritage magazine found its own voice was when images or works produced through mechanical reproduction were berated as inauthentic. This preceded the Visual Studies turn that eventually broadened the ambit of Art History to include photographic images.
Alkazi reminds me of the towering figure of A.K. Coomaraswamy, who, as the pioneering Keeper of Indian and Islamic Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1917-1947), was the first to declare photography as worthy of belonging to a museum collection. Alkazi’s early recognition of photography impacted his own collecting and archiving practices, that were going to later pave the way towards expanding the idea of an art institution at a global level.
I would like to briefly reflect on ‘critical’ and ‘mass’ separately. Alkazi’s criticality had to accommodate the masses, so to speak. With its accessibility to the wider public, Art Heritage was in a sense much more widely read than other art journals such as the Journal of Arts and Ideas (1982-1999). It is true that JOAI emerged in the wake of the Cultural Studies turn and conceptually even questioned the elitism of the category of high art. Its cutting-edge style of writing, however, was aimed more at a scholarly public than a wider readership. Today, when I glance through the various issues of Art Heritage, the all-encompassing range of genres covered by a single art journal/magazine over four decades is staggering.
GS: The Alkazis established Art Heritage in 1978, about the time when Mr Ebrahim Alkazi left the National School of Drama (NSD). Their role as gallerists/patrons was probably challenged by the near absence of a vibrant art scene in Delhi at that time. What do you believe were the values and methods that Mr Alkazi used to build this space?
PDM: In Directing Art (2016), the book I have edited on Alkazi, I was keen to bring together the two hats he wore with great panache: one related to his passion for theatre, and the other linked with his commitment to the visual arts. The fact that he had come to the latter after his longstanding experience of theatre in various capacities -- actor, director, producer, teacher, administrator -- immensely benefited his interventions in the world of visual arts.
One big lesson he seems to have learnt from his long association with NSD (1962-1977) was the role of archives and how it went hand in hand with institution-building. Just as a performative art form like theatre is temporal; its experience must be systematically documented for a sustained, critical engagement. Likewise, the viewing of art is also timebound, even if a painting or a sculpture is a stationary medium. Hence, an art gallery has to double up not only as a place for viewing, but also for keeping public memory alive by documenting the debates and issues surrounding modern and contemporary art. It is no wonder that Art Heritage as a gallery and Art Heritage as an art magazine had to be in consonance with each other.
If you allow me to be autobiographical, a little story remains with me. In 1984, when Partha Mitter, the well-known art historian, met Alkazi in Delhi after his lecture tour in Baroda for the book Much Maligned Monsters, the first question Alkazi asked him was, “Did you meet promising young artists and art writers among the students in the art school in Baroda?” It was clear to him that art practice and art theory could not be separated. In retrospect, this appears to be a method he followed and reiterated in the many editorials he wrote for Art Heritage.
GS: A unique feature of Art Heritage are the articles that Alkazi dedicated to every exhibition. He wrote several of these himself. How do you read the spirit of criticality and aspects of modernity generated in both his theatre and art curation?
PDM: Being a pioneer meant belonging to a time when there were few players in the field. At the time of Art Heritage’s inception, the field of art writing was nebulous. In the Art History department in Baroda, for example, the field of art criticism was introduced in the early 1980s with very few takers. The idea of curating as we understand it today was non-existent.
Alkazi’s criticality stemmed from two broad sources. The first was his familiarity with the Euro-American art world and literary criticism, linked with T.S. Eliot, the modernist critic, who had proposed the framework of “Tradition and Individual Talent.” The second was his belonging to post-independent India, where complex transactions were unfolding around tradition and modernity. If we understand criticality in this dual sense, it would be apposite to say that Alkazi the theatre director paved the way for Alkazi the curator.
Another crucial domain in which Alkazi’s criticality can begaugedisin hisdeep and continual engagement with women artists. He may not have alluded to feminist discourses and critical terms recognized in gendered art history today, but his mode of including them as part of the mainstream aligns him with feminist art history.
GS: Alkazi's sweeping vision and work in theatre led to the making of a network of talent across the country, a spatial engagement with the city of Delhi, as well as a protocol of viewership not seen before. Do you believe that the pedagogic discourse that he brought to his work in theatre was also replicated in his gallery practice?
PDM: In my view, Alkazi was far tougher and exacting with his actor-students than with visual artists and art writers. In theatre, he trained some of the most celebrated actors of today. He had a far critical eye in theatre, a field where the domains of practice and theory organically coalesced. He could relate to both these areas intimately, being an intense actor himself. On the other hand, despite the expertise he developed in painting, it could not match up to his acting skills and the kind of stage presence that he commanded.
Comparatively, if you survey the range of artists patronized by him over four decades, not all of them achieved the same level of recognition. It was in that sense not possible to replicate the same pedagogic discourse from theatre to gallery practice. He did come to recognize that theatre and visual arts belonged to separate domains, each posing peculiar challenges.
It is my sense that his theatre experience demonstrated to him the pitfalls of cultural nationalism. As a result, he broke out of the spell of the national modern even when it was still a dominant framework and envisaged a more connected world. His close association primarily with the art world of London and New York expanded his vision to take on global cultural politics at an international stage.
In this overarching vision lay the gem, Centre for International Contemporary Art (CICA), in New York, at the heart of the Euro-American art world. His pedagogic discourse, where the role of archives was pivotal now, pertained primarily to visual arts, which had outgrown the framework of gallery practice. This grand monument blossomed for a short time, before it crumbled on account of the cataclysmic geopolitics of the Iraq War (2003-2011). Yet, with its focus on archival practice, this Centre had an inbuilt pedagogic programme, which had expanded its remit. It was no longer about teaching the Indian public the arts of the past and present, but about challenging the West and its Eurocentric definitions of contemporary art on its own turf.