There's a reason why Sudhanva Deshpande, actor and author of Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi, chose to begin the story of the Communist playwright and director with his death. "There's a peculiar way in which when people die for a cause, their death becomes larger than their life, for instance Che Guevara, Bhagat Singh or Safdar Hashmi. Safdar's was not an accidental death; it was part of a struggle. To understand that life, you have to understand that death and those struggles," he says about the fatal attack on Hashmi and his theatre group, Jana Natya Manch or Janam, while they were performing the play Halla Bol in 1989.

So, when Deshpande released his book in January, Sunil Shanbag, director and founder, Studio Tamaasha, expressed his keenness to be a part of it. The result of this collaboration will be what Shanbag calls "a warm evening of celebrating a very brave theatre personality," at the studio tomorrow.