The irresistible rise of Vijay Crishna

Vijay Crishna played Adolf Hitler in the play, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, by Bertolt Brecht. Illustration/Uday Mohite

Vijay Crishna was one of life's unusual men. He came from Calcutta in the 70s to work with my father - to get into advertising and marketing, to pursue the theatre, to absorb Bombay.

I first met Vijay Crishna when I was maybe ten. He had twinkling, mischievous eyes. He had the ability to reach out to people with his wicked sense of humour. I was to know this man, through various stages of my life, as one of my dad's closest friends, as an actor par excellence, whom I had the good fortune to direct.

Vijay Crishna loved to act, he lived to act. And I had my first one on one engagement with him in 1984.

When I began my directorial journey, the late great Burjor Patel, asked Shernaz, his daughter, and me, if he could produce, "Nuts" a play I was contemplating, with her in the lead. He took it a step further, "Should I ask Vijay Crishna if he'd like to act for you?" Burjor asked me. And Vijay agreed, no ego. happy to be led by a debutant director.

This was to be the first of three plays, Vijay and I did together.

His passion for the stage was magnetic, his love to don characters was addictive. He was a tough actor to direct, it certainly felt that way at 23, he'd ask innumerable questions, which pissed me off as a young Turk. But, later as we got to me directing him in 1997, in Pinter's "One For The Road", I understood that for actors, innumerable questions often hid an insecurity, to excel. He also possessed an insatiable thirst to inhabit a role. The pursuit to be the best, to absorb a part so completely, to shine, to embody, to become a 3D, 360 degree character, not a 2D cardboard cut-out, the process was arduous and challenging. Vijay was the best, and expected you to be at your best.

He wanted to play the leading man on stage, his vast collection of plays, adorning an entire wall at home, comprised the works of Shakespeare, Pinter, and Brecht. My feeling is he bought scripts for plays he'd wanted to be in - and he sought directors whom he felt could cast him in the "great roles". Alyque and Pearl were his first port of call. This was a pre-Indian English theatre era, and he was their first choice, whether the Hitler character in Betrolt Brecht's ‘The Irresistable Rise of Arturo Ui", or the doctor in Tom Tempinski's Duet for One, or Iago in "Othello" or Stanley in Harold Pinter's "The Birthday Party".

Growing up in the theatre, Vijay Crishna and Homi Daruwala ruled the Bombay stage - perhaps the two finest of their generation, in my book, theatre becomes truly exciting when great actors themselves direct great actors. Vijay directing a lifeless, bedridden Homi in a play called "Whose Life is it Anyway", was unforgettable. Homi once told me backstage, "No way I could have pulled off this part, if I didn't have an actor like Vijay directing me"

In later years, Vijay would call often, "Dear boy, I think you're ready for Tom Stoppard" or "My friend, have you read King Lear, I feel I'm the right age to play him, what do you think?"

Vijay was always this straight-backed man, a maverick who maximised every second of life - a man of many trades, with an ability to shift gears like he shifted roles on stage.

Vijay was a fitness maniac, he walked and walked, and trekked. He explored, he was a Columbus-like explorer, a discoverer, he was an environmentalist, he was concerned about global warming long before it became a thing - his expeditions to the Antarctica, his walks across Northen Spain, Japan and Egypt were legendary.

Vijay was vital - vital to the stage, vital to the environment, vital to the mountains, just vital to the people around him.

Good night, lover of Tibet.
Good night, sweet prince.
Good night Iago, Arturo Ui, Dr Louis Feldman, Biff, and Macbeth.
Good night, Vijay Mohan Crishna. Sleep well. Good night.

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, filmmaker and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com