Omprakash Chavan has played over 200 female characters in his stage career

For Chavan, 54, life and art revolves around women. At the impressionable age of 14, when he hadn’t even matriculated, he lost his father. Being the only son, he couldn’t have placed all responsibilities on a widowed mother, who was trying hard to survive by selling firewood.  With neither land nor finances to fall back on, formal education stopped after Class X.  “Aai and I saw only one door open for us—that of the Ravalnath temple precinct, which hosted the popular Dashavataar theatre annually during Diwali. The late night folk performances, which enjoyed patronage from the village temple trust over 800 years, accepted me into its warm fold. That became my source of livelihood, my strength, my identity, and later my prestige,” shares Chavan, who at one point performed 200 shows per month in and around the Sindhudurg district. 

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As his reputation crossed home borders, he was invited to eclectic venues—the Theatre Olympics event in Chennai, the Lavani Festival in Chandigarh and twice at the National School of Drama in Delhi.  But following an angioplasty in 2016, he accepts fewer invites and concentrates on mentoring rising artistes in Konkan.  

Photographer Indrajit Khambe, who is making a documentary on Chavan, has accompanied his troupe in several villages across Konkan

Despite a strict health regimen and other pressures of living in a remote village, the Women’s Day performance is a date he never fails to celebrate. “I secured my daily bhakri and a reputable career by playing women on stage. For me every day is Women’s Day,” he jokes, adding that he couldn’t have lived longer if the 200-odd female characters hadn’t populated his stage life. 

He first played the lead role of Vatsala in Vatsalaharan, the mythological play that revolves around the abduction of Balaram’s daughter, who subsequently marries Abhimanyu.  Chavan, then an adolescent of 17, had only heard of the female roles immortalised by the legendary Bal Gandharva.  He entered Vatsala’s persona by recalling the maestro.  “It was my first parkaya pravesh, and it felt beautiful. In one sense, that role also helped me in assessing my ability to ‘become’ a woman.”  There was no looking back thereafter—Uttara, Subhadra, Draupadi, Mahalasa, Kunti.  As was the tradition, the Dashavataar folk mandals zeroed in on popular mythological scripts for various performance seasons.

Chavan says he is very conscious about not taking recourse in bawdy or over-the-top gestures to evoke laughter, because men playing women tend to do that. Pics/Indrajit Khambe

Chavan would accept any and every invite, whether on Gudi Padwa or during the Holi festivities.  “I plunged into a sea of female roles, mainly because there was little else I could think of.  Going in search of another job to Mumbai was unthinkable,” he adds. Gradually, he started enjoying the roles.  As he played one heroine, even modern-day women in comedies like Dev Deto Karm Neto, over and over, he realised that a woman can be a superior negotiator in tricky situations. “She has more evolved life skills. She is richer even in terms of accepting circumstances. I gained from that skill, while playing the parts.”

Chavan didn’t have mentors who could shape his trajectory.  “In each role, my mistakes or past experiences guided me.  I was clear about one thing—I would never take recourse in bawdy or over-the-top gestures to evoke laughter because men playing women tend to do that.” He didn’t want to be the self-conscious male actor in a saree, poking fun at the very idea of being a woman. “My roles became opportunities to experience the gender I was not born into.”

Chavan’s ‘female’ roles are much-appreciated all over Maharashtra; he has won several state-level awards.  He is also going to soon feature in a documentary—delayed due to COVID restrictions—by his renowned photographer-friend, Indrajit Khambe, who has followed him since 2012.  Khambe first watched Chavan in NSD (2008). “I was so mesmerised by his female avatar that I instantly decided to document his stage magic.  Although I wasn’t even a full-fledged cameraperson then, I knew Chavan was going to be my lifetime subject.”

Khambe has accompanied Chavan’s troupe to 100-odd villages of Konkan.  “We would enter any village around 7 pm, so that Chavan and other actors could eat their dinner [usually daal bhaat on a makeshift wayside stove], put on their robes, and catch some sleep.  Actors would wake up periodically, as per their stage entries,” Khambe recalls Chavan as a superbly-endowed impersonator, who can enter a character within seconds.  “I have seen him play a bubbly, ponytailed girl and a mature pining lovesick queen—not once missing a nuance or overdoing a portrayal.” Khambe was particularly taken in by his villainish Sulochana in the play Parkaya Pravesh and the 18-year old Chandani from Daiv Janile Kuni.  

Khambe feels Chavan’s talent lies in pursuing his female roles with a marked seriousness that is very rare in the Dashavataar performance circles. “He brings in as much realism as he possibly can in a set up that values melodrama and instant comic repartee. Chavan is single-mindedly committed to a real-life projection of women.” Khambe says the folk artiste manages to strike a serious note in a highly fluid jatra set up, which has no defined stage, nor a rehearsal space or a written script.  “Any other lesser actor wouldn’t have hit the notes that Chavan is able to achieve in front of a bustling village audience.” 

Quite often, women from the audience, his wife and daughter included, ask Chavan as to how he is able to be in-character for hours, especially in late-night open-air shows.  “I tell them that I become a woman, and not just act like one.” He takes a good hour-and-a-half for the makeup session before every performance. The silence of the hour inspires him to render the heroines with poise, just as it will aid him on March 8 to become the childless-yet-stoic Sumedhavati!    

Sumedha Raikar-Mhatre is a culture columnist in search of the sub-text.  You can reach her at  sumedha.raikar@mid-day.com