05 January,2009 09:55 AM IST | | Vivek Sabnis
The Marathi adaptation of Vijay Tendulkar's famous English play will be released tomorrow
TO pay tribute to Vijay Tendulkar on his 81st birth anniversary, the Marathi adaptation of his famous English play His Fifth Woman will be released tomorrow. Besides, the play will be published by Popular Book House during a theatre festival in Mumbai.
Titled as Tyachi Pachvi, the play has been translated by city-based playwright Dr Chandrashekhar Phansalkar and is a prequel to Tendulkar's controversial play, Sakharam Binder, which her wrote in 1974.
"It is an honour for me as Tendulkar had himself asked me to translate the English version," said Phansalkar. He added that Tendulkar himself had suggested the Marathi title to him. "This is my tribute to a person who had tremendous command over the language and knew how to play with words," Phansalkar said. He informed that Tendulkar himself wanted to translate His Fifth Womanu00a0 but couldn't do so as he fell sick.
Phansalkar is an acclaimed playwright himself. His play Ram Naam Satya Hai was staged by Chetan Datar of the National School of Drama. Three of his other plays Tax Free, Samdvibhuj Trikon and Rickshawala were presented in Germany under the banner of Indian Curry in 1997.
His Fifth Woman
His Fifth Woman is a prequel of Sakharam Binder in whichu00a0 Sakharam only makes a mention about his fifth woman. Also, he denounces the insincerity of males who have sex on the sly and abuse helpless women.
He picks upu00a0 women who are discarded by other men and takes them as 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 to.
Sakharam's English version was also presented in USA in the Tendulkar Festival.
Though it was banned in 1974, the play still proves to be one of Tendulkar's popular works.
