Nandikar, under the leadership of illustrious theatre luminary, Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay, was founded in 1960. It was born with a simple desire: Produce best plays excellently and perform these in as many places and times as possible. By 1965, Nandikar became the busiest theatre group in West Bengal, performing as many as 131 times in nine months (theatre halted for three months due to Indo-Pak war)!

1961 : After one or two somewhat damp squibs, within a year, in 1961, NANDIKAR mounted Indianized version of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author (Natyakarer Sandhane Chhati Caritrain Bengali). One veteran dramatist came backstage and furiously demanded from Ajitesh and his peers if they, at all, had brothers and sisters like normal human beings!

Sombhu Mitra, too, after the show came backstage, and invited Ajitesh and others to his flat at 11A, Nasiruddin Road. Next day, Sombhu Mitra, then 46 and already the first-person singular number in Indian Theatre, and Ajitish with a few of his friends, all dark horses, began a tête-à-tête for hours and hours, discussing the nuts and bolts as also dreams of theatre. The same year Nandikar commemorated the Tagore centenary with the production of the controversial Char Adhyay (Four Chapters), for long untouchable to the then Left.

1964 : Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard blazed the Bengali stage as Manjari Amer Manjari. One evening Satyajit Ray was a guest. In a while he returned the compliment with his design of NANDIKAR’s logo, which till today NANDIKAR carries as its badge of honour.

1965 : In nine months – for three months theatre was blacked out due to Indo-Pak war – NANDIKAR performed 131 times. Clearly it was the forerunner among the busiest groups.

1966 : NANDIKAR split. It was certainly depleted with the departure of 18 young persons, including Bibhas Chakraborty. Yet, with never-say-die zeal, Sher Afgan, after another Pirandello play, followed by the legendary Tin Poysar Pala a la Brecht, proved the Phoenix-like strength of NANDIKAR. Performing in rural and urban and industrial belts, performing in all the major cities of the nation, performing almost every second or third day, NANDIKAR earned its pride of place in the niche of Indian Alternative Theatre.

Yet the Show must go on! SherAfgan (Pirandello, again), Tin Poyshar Pala (Brecht) and regular quality theatre helped Nandikar to notch the top.

1970 : NANDIKAR bristling with pent-up energy; NANDIKAR raring to perform theatre every day;
NANDIKAR with its common sense felt more work must fetch more money, earning a sure ticket to professionalism. Common sense indeed! NANDIKAR was just the sitting duck for some theatre promoters who had about the same time built a theatre house, Rangana. With no formal contract, NANDIKAR gullibly entered Rangana during the Pujas in 1970 and performed at least four times a week for five long years, until in 1975 it was shooed away by the theatre owners.

1970-1975 : Rangana Theatre, A Disaster : These were five years of trauma, laceration and daily degradation. While taking the Rangana- plunge, short shrift was given to theatre economics and theatre history. Nobody cared to remember that theatre, because of its non-replicability and recurrent need for capital investment, was more expensive than any other performing art. The fact was forgotten that nowhere and never did good theatre survive without subvention.

1975 : Driven out of Rangana, NANDIKAR was somewhat dispirited, dejected and directionless. Hibernation started. Some churnings, too. Tremors of a rift began to ripple. Desire to explode and usher in the new was unmistakable, too.

Come 1977 : Open-sky culture sneaking in. Generation of consumers and competitors buckling their belts. Janta Dal ousting Indira-ji at the Centre. Left Front Government crashing into the Writers’ Buildings on a lease for decades.

In the small arena of NANDIKAR, too, history was in the making.

1977 : March 10 – Rudraprasad led a young band of 55 to let Football happen on the stage. Football fanaticism on the stage,actually preceded the young football violence on the streets of Calcutta.

1977 : March 12 – Keya Chakraborty died in an accident while shooting for a film.

1977 : September – Founder Member Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay, high priest of NANDIKAR, left his own group to form Nandimukh. Rudraprasad, with a handful of seniors and about 70 freshers, stayed back to mend fences.

This second split of 1977, despite usual gossip and back chat, was no clash of personalities or wounded egos. As the future proved, the two friends, Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay and Rudraprasad Sengupta, had each his own vision of theatre.

But then, could Rudraprasad foresee that even before the turn of the decade a new-look NANDIKAR would begin to emerge! A NANDIKAR going beyond the single mission of production and performance alone, picking up the agenda of a great variety, huge quantity and striking quality in its newer and richer extra-theatrical and para-theatrical actions. None – the detractor or the friendly – could imagine that in a couple of decades’ time NANDIKAR would become a theatre institution, and on its own would become a truly professional ensemble!

1979 : Theatre Training imparted to children, young and adults under the initiation of Smt. Swatilekha Sengupta back in 1986 is a regular signature theatre activity for Nandikar till date with countless beneficiaries working in various segments within and outside the world of theatre.

1980 : Research [a goldmine for theatre research students – a starting point for dissemination. By the turn of the millennium this became a major strand of NANDIKAR’s activity]

1984 : National Theatre Festival, since the inception in 1984, is one of the most important uninterrupted annual events in Nandikar’s work calendar till date. This year we shall have the 40th edition of this 10-day long celebration of theatre.

1989 : Theatre-in-Education, a dedicated programme of theatre by and for school children, initiated by Nandikar in 1989 and successfully continued for 21 years under the scheme of Ministry of Culture, GoI

1991 : In collaboration with Ford Foundation, Nandikar undertook theatre activities with variously deprived and handicapped children of Kolkata and west Bengal.

Nineties – Bringing theatre to various professionals – corporate sector, sex workers, teachers

Late ’80s & early ’90s – character of theatre changing – Kathakata, musicality & physicality as a counterbalance of rock video, synthetic, mass culture – which will sparkle, exude energy.