Q. Since the time you began with theatre in Mumbai, what is the one factor that has undergone the most drastic and obvious change?
A. If you consider the South-Central district of Mumbai, this is the area from Khetwadi to Kamatipura: the epicentre of Bombay after the British royalty were gifted the island city by the Portuguese. The first thing to spring up was theatre. There were 35 makeshift theatres that featured plays performed in English for the recreation of the British soldiers. Hundred years later, theatre in Mumbai, has become a bit more gentrified and genteel. And ticket prices are higher. It is a question a lot of us have been grappling with in the past two decades or so — the transition of Mumbai from an industrial-scale mill city, mostly informal, and over-worked and inhumane, into an urban and chic financial centre.

Ramu Ramanathan