KAAMIYA

Kaamiya was written thirty-eight years ago, and although it won the Sultan Padamsee Award in 1977, this is its first production in a Hindi translation by Ramgopal Bajaj. When Bajaj (Bajju) called in up in the US to tell me he was doing it, I was quite surprised. I had quite given up on it, not in any despairing sort of way, since I have, over the years, become quite accustomed to the idea – not without some buried embers of hope! – of the possibility of my some dozen plays gathering dust on the shelves before becoming a meal for drama-loving silverfish.

Upon re-reading kaamiya recently, I felt it held up rather well after all these years. In light of the above-mentioned fate of plays, one has to become one’s own best fan and audience. But there are, I hope, objective reasons for kaamiya’s contemporary relevance. Some human issues are temporal and some eternal. I believe kaamiya addresses both.


Kaamiya was written thirty-eight years ago, and although it won the Sultan Padamsee Award in 1977, this is its first production in a Hindi translation by Ramgopal Bajaj. When Bajaj (Bajju) called in up in the US to tell me he was doing it, I was quite surprised. I had quite given up on it, not in any despairing sort of way, since I have, over the years, become quite accustomed to the idea – not without some buried embers of hope! – of the possibility of my some dozen plays gathering dust on the shelves before becoming a meal for drama-loving silverfish.

Upon re-reading kaamiya recently, I felt it held up rather well after all these years. In light of the above-mentioned fate of plays, one has to become one’s own best fan and audience. But there are, I hope, objective reasons for kaamiya’s contemporary relevance. Some human issues are temporal and some eternal. I believe kaamiya addresses both.

Subscribe to Kamla's Blog