Legendary people have certain legends associated with them. There are quite a few in Naya Theater about Habib Tanvir. A few of them are here. Will ask more of my friends from the theater so that they can all be collated here.
Once Habib Tanvir was holding a workshop with some young actors. There was one young actor whose voice was not too strong and Habib saab was imploring him to be louder. The poor actor could not understand what to do when Habib saab told him to use his entire body to bring power to his voice. It can be confusing-A director, that too a Habib Tanvir, telling a young actor to use the full body to find strength in his voice. The poor actor asked him in a feeble voice- where do I take out the voice from. Only to hear the retort- sir se nikaliye, aankhon se nikaliye, kaanon se nikaliye, gaalon se nikaliye, kandhon se nikaliye, chati se nikaliye, haathon se nikaliye, pet se nikaliye…(pause) wagerah wagerah wagerah…( use your head, your eyes, your ears, your nose, your shoulders, your chest, your hands, your tummy ( pause) etc etc etc)
In one of the shows of 'Charan Das Chor', Habib Tanvir was to take an entry as Havaldar. He came out of stage after his previous entry and wanted a puff on his pipe…sat down…started smoking…forgot all about his entry…got delayed …Moneeka found him smoking, she walked up to him and gave him a tight slap for forgetting his entry.
One summer day in Delhi when we were supposed to rehearse for Agra Bazar in open air- Habib Tanvir was late- Vijay Shukla was sitting close to me as was Gobind Ram Nimbalkar- Vijay Shukla and me started joking about Habib saab that he will come late and then make us work. I too quipped and said - bhookha sher aane waala hai…( the hungry lion is going to arrive) Gobind baba responded and said - well we called him 'baagh'( tiger) in the early days. He was quite a disciplinarian and when he did scream it felt that he was going to eat you alive.
to be continued…..
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