Remembering theatre personality Shivaji Chaturvedi

Theatre personality, Shivaji Chaturvedi who passed distant recently, was known for his signature handle-bar moustache and thunderous guffaw. He had a passionateness for euphony too, says D. Ramachandran, a subordinate of the Madras Youth Choir, founded by M.B. Shrinivas, who was a person of Shivaji. Shivaji enjoyed being with Shrinivas erstwhile helium composed music.

Kalyani Raman, a longtime person of Shivaji, says, “A set called Missiles was started successful 1966-67, and my brothers — guitarist Chandrasekaran and drummer Purushottaman — who played for Ilayaraja for 47 years, were among the founder-members. Shivaji joined Missiles. He was adept astatine nationalist relations, and organised programmes astatine prestigious venues. In 1969, helium got HMV to merchandise an LP grounds of Missiles. In the 60s , helium heard a young miss named Usha Iyer (today known arsenic Usha Uthup) sing and was impressed. He arranged programmes for her with Missiles playing for her. Usha and Missiles performed astatine histrion Jaishankar’s location warming ceremony. In the 70s , bands would execute astatine Safire theatre successful the mornings. Shivaji arranged a performance for Missiles astatine Safire, and it was a houseful show.” 

Shivaji was 1 of the founder-member of Stage Creations, on with Kathadi Ramamurthi, T.D. Sundarrajan and Bobby Raghunathan. His portrayal of the generous Muslim shopkeeper Rowther successful the play ‘Dowry Kalyana Vaibhogame’ won all-round appreciation. 

He was besides a laminitis -member of Shraddha, a theatre radical established successful 2010. Shraddha’s archetypal play Dhanushkoti, written and directed by Vivek Shankar, was astir a tempest and consequent flooding of Dhanushkoti successful 1964. “We wanted to amusement the municipality being pounded by rain. Shivaji told maine not to interest astir the accumulation cost, and arranged for the funds. Art director, Balachander, drew up the plans. But Krishnaswamy, caput of Narada Gana Sabha, refused to let h2o connected stage, fearing harm to the woody flooring . Shivaji convinced him determination would beryllium nary damage. We had a motortruck of h2o stationed extracurricular the venue, to pump successful caller water, which flowed into assorted postulation points connected the stage, cleverly hidden down props, and pumped out. No different play has ever been staged with h2o connected the signifier for a duration of an hour-and-a-half. It was imaginable lone due to the fact that of Shivaji’s efforts.”

Vivek says Shivaji ever had a contingency fund, to assistance retired his theatre friends erstwhile they needed the fiscal help. When Shivaji was successful the Gulf, helium arranged for galore theatre groups to signifier plays determination too. For Crazy Mohan’s play ‘Chocolate Krishna’, Shivaji performed the magic tricks, which were fashionable with children. In T.V. Varadarajan’s ‘IPL Kudumbam’, an histrion had to alteration connected signifier from Brahma to Vishnu and past to Siva. Each alteration took conscionable 20 seconds, acknowledgment to Shivaji’s efforts.

In the 70s, creation maestro K.J. Sarasa and her students were invited to execute ‘Shakuntalam’, a dance-drama successful Ujjain for Kalidas Samaroh. “The idiosyncratic who was to play the palace defender didn’t crook up. We asked Shivaji to beryllium the guard, helium agreed, being the bully athletics that helium was. As it was a creation drama, helium had to participate the signifier arsenic a dancer. We taught him a fewer steps and helium pranced connected to the signifier and did rather a bully job, though each of america were successful splits. We won the archetypal prize that twelvemonth and Shivaji claimed it was due to the fact that of his performance,” laughs Prema Sadasivam, Shivaji’s sister.

Off signifier too, Shivaji touched the lives of galore with his generosity and his wide scope of interests.