Sakharam Binder (Sakharam, the Binder) is a play by Indian playwright Vijay Tendulkar written in Marathi and first performed in 1972. It was banned in India in 1974. [1] It was produced and directed by Kamlakar Sarang.
Sakharam Binder, the protagonist, thinks he has the system by the tail and he can disregard the culture & societal values as long as he is truthful. That system is the de facto enslavement of women in postcolonial India, despite the promises of democracy and modernity. Sakharam, a bookbinder, picks up other men's discarded women—castoff wives who would otherwise be homeless, destitute or murdered with impunity, and takes them in as domestic servants and sex partners.
He rules his home like a tin-pot tyrant, yet each woman is told that she is free to leave whenever she likes. He will even give her a sari, 50 rupees and a ticket to wherever she wants to go. Everything good and proper, where Sakharam Binder is concerned, he says. He's no husband to forget common decency. What he does not anticipate are the moral and emotional complications of this arrangement, which prove heartbreakingly ruinous to everyone involved. [2]
Over the decades, the role of Sakharam has been performed by many actors including Nilu Phule, Sayaji Shinde, Rajiv Nema, Sanjiva Sahai and Jitendra Ghete.
The play has since been adapted and translated into many Indian languages, including Kannada, Hindi, Bengali and English. [3]
It was staged in English, at an off-Broadway venue, as part of the theatre company, The Play Company's season starring Adam Alexi-Malle, Sarita Choudhury, Anna George, Sanjiv Jhaveri, Bernard White and directed by Maria Mileaf.[ citation needed ] It was additionally included as the closing play at the month-long, Tendulkar Festival, held in New York city, in 2004. [4] [5]
It has been adapted into two Indian films by the same name in Marathi by Arun Hornekar in 1974, [6] and by Sandesh Kulkarni in 2004. [7]
Vijay Dhondopant Tendulkar was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi. His Marathi plays established him as a writer of plays with contemporary, unconventional themes. He is best known for his plays Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe (1967), Ghāshirām Kotwāl (1972), and Sakhārām Binder (1972). Many of Tendulkar's plays derived inspiration from real-life incidents or social upheavals, which provide clear light on harsh realities. He has provided guidance to students studying "play writing" in US universities. Tendulkar was a dramatist and theatre personality in Mahārāshtra for over five decades.
Girish Karnad was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada writer, playwright and a Jnanpith awardee, who predominantly worked in South Indian cinema and Bollywood. His rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the coming of age of modern Indian playwriting in Kannada, just as Badal Sarkar did in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, and Mohan Rakesh in Hindi. He was a recipient of the 1998 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary honour conferred in India.
Vijaya Mehta is a noted Indian Marathi film and theatre director and also an actor in many films from the Parallel Cinema. She is a founder member of Mumbai-based theatre group, Rangayan with playwright Vijay Tendulkar, and actors Arvind Deshpande and Shriram Lagoo. She is most known for her acclaimed role in film Party (1984) and for her directorial ventures, Rao Saheb (1986) and Pestonjee (1988). As the founder member of theatre group, Rangayan, she became a leading figure in the experimental Marathi theatre of the 1960s.
Mahesh Elkunchwar is an Indian playwright, screenplay writer with more than 20 plays to his name, in addition to his theoretical writings, critical works, and his active work in India's Parallel Cinema as actor and screenwriter. Today along with Vijay Tendulkar, he is credited as one of the most influential and progressive playwrights not just in Marathi theatre, but also in Indian theatre. In 2014, he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour in performing arts in India.
Sonali Kulkarni is an Indian actress, producer, and writer who predominantly appears in Marathi and Hindi films, in addition to a few Kannada, Tamil, Gujarati and English films. She has worked in over 70 films, both commercial and experimental, as well as some international projects, and is regarded as one of the most versatile Marathi actresses. Kulkarni has won a National Film Award, two Maharashtra State Film Awards, and four Filmfare Marathi Awards, and has been nominated for one Filmfare Award, two IIFA Awards, and one Screen Award.
Dr. Jabbar Patel is a former paediatrician and a Marathi-language theatre and film director of India. His production of the play Vijay Tendulkar's play Ghashiram Kotwal, in 1973 is considered a classic in Modern Indian Theatre.
Ghashiram Kotwal is a Marathi play written by playwright Vijay Tendulkar in 1972 as a response to the rise of a local political party, in Maharashtra. The play is a political satire, written as historical drama. It is based on the life of Nana Phadnavis (1741–1800), one of the prominent ministers in the court of the Peshwa of Pune and Ghashiram Kotwal, the police chief of the city. Its theme is how men in power give rise to ideologies to serve their purposes, and later destroy them when they become useless. It was first performed on 16 December 1972, by the Progressive Dramatic Association in Pune. Jabbar Patel's production of the play in 1973 is considered a classic in Modern Indian Theatre.
Madhukar Vasudev Dhond was a literary and art critic from Maharashtra, India.
Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe is a Marathi play written by Indian playwright Vijay Tendulkar in 1963 and first performed in 1967, directed by Arvind Deshpande, with Sulbha Deshpande as the main lead.
Nilu Phule was an Indian actor known for his roles in Marathi movies and Marathi theatre. Nilu Phule acted in around 250 Marathi and Hindi movies during his film career. He was most prominently seen playing the roles of notorious villains in the movies.
Shyamanand Jalan was a Kolkata-based Indian theatre director, and actor. He is credited for the renaissance period of modern Indian theatre and especially the Hindi theatre in Kolkata from the 1960s to 1980s. He was the first to perform modernist Mohan Rakesh, starting with Ashadh Ka Ek Din in 1960 and in the coming years bridged the gap between Hindi theatre and Bengali theatre, by mounting Hindi productions of works by Bengali playwrights, like Badal Sircar's Evam Indrajit (1968) and Pagla Ghora (1971), which in turn introduced Sircar to rest of the country. In 2005, he directed his first and only film Eashwar Mime Co., which was an adaptation of Dibyendu Palit's story, Mukhabhinoy, by Vijay Tendulkar.
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Shanta Gokhale is an Indian writer, translator, journalist and theatre critic. She is best known for her works Rita Welinkar and Tya Varshi.
Sulabha Deshpande was an Indian actress and theatre director. Apart from Marathi theatre and Hindi theatre in Mumbai, she acted in over 73 mainstream Bollywood films. She also performed in art house cinema such as Bhumika (1977), Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan (1978), and Gaman (1978) as a character actor, along with numerous TV series and plays. A leading figure in experimental theatre movement of the 1960s, she was associated with Rangayan, and personalities like Vijay Tendulkar, Vijaya Mehta, and Satyadev Dubey. In 1971, she co-founded the theatre group Awishkar with her husband Arvind Deshpande, and also started its children's wing, Chandrashala, which continues to perform professional children theatre. In later years, she acted in serials such as Jee Ley Zara, Ek Packet Umeed, Asmita and in films such as English Vinglish.
Suhasini Joshi, popularly known by her screen name Suhas Joshi, is a Marathi theater, film and television actress. She is also seen in many Bollywood films. She was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 2018 for Acting. She is better known for her role in Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai 2 and Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai 3 as Swapnil Joshi's grandmother. She is currently portraying the role of Shilpa Tulaskar's mother-in-law in Zee Marathi's Tu Tevha Tashi.
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