Noted colourist and theatre director Bansi Kaul breathed his last at his residence in Delhi on Saturday morning. Aged 71, Kaul was reportedly ailing for a long time and he was diagnosed with cancer last November.
Who was Bansi Kaul?
Born in 1949 in a Kashmiri Pandit family, Kaul began his career as a director with NSD Repertory Company after graduating from National School of Drama (NSD) in New Delhi in 1973.
Kaul was a part of the faculty of school for many years before forming Rang Vidushak, his own theatre institute in Bhopal in 1984. The new group incorporated folk idioms into its production and evolved a new idiom of clown-theatre, performing in India as well as elsewhere in Hindi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil and Singhalese.
In 1995, he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and in 2014 Kaul was honoured with the prestigious Padma Shri. Kaul also a recipient of the Rashtriya Kalidas Samman for the year 2016–17.
Adding a new colour concept
According to reports, Kaul's organization Color-Clown has produced more than 80 plays in various genres.
Organising coloured camps from time to time in more than 115 cities in the country and abroad, this organization has performed in the auditoriums as well as in the courtyards of village chaupals, palaces and havelis, river ghats and sand dunes in the desert that are still remembered today.
Outside India, the organization has staged plays at theater festivals held in Suriname, Colombia, Bangladesh, Denmark, Singapore and Pakistan.
Artist of colour jester "Bharat Mahotsav" held in Thailand, Switzerland, Russia, "Book Fair" in Germany, 19th Commonwealth Games held in Delhi, "Lusofonia Games 2014" held in Goa, and in Chennai, there may be just a few cultural programs where Color Clown has not left its imprints, including the inauguration ceremony of the Football League.
