The journey so far: Fifty years of the National Centre for Performing Arts

While Bhabha was the moving force behind the NCPA, several others stood by his side

On December 29, 1969, Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, stood before a packed auditorium built on land that had been reclaimed from the Arabian Sea just five years earlier. Looking at Tata Group Chairman JRD Tata, who had delivered the welcome address, she said to the gathering that included the who’s who of the Indian corporate world, “You said something about no man living by bread alone and this brings an old saying, I think it is Sufi, to my mind. “If I had two loaves of bread, I would sell one and buy hyacinths to feed my soul.”

The event was the opening of the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA). Standing on an eight-acre corner plot on the edge of Mumbai, the centre has been feeding the city’s soul for the last five decades. One of the early philanthropic ventures in a metropolis that is known to ruthlessly put commerce before art at every opportunity, the NCPA turns 50 next year. Set within the city’s first and what used to be its only business district at the time, Nariman Point, it is perhaps the proverbial exception to the rule about Bombay and business, or Mumbai and dhanda.

Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inaugurates the Tata Theatre in 1980

From the very beginning, there was little doubt about the centre’s intent. Built like an international arts hub, it was meant to promote the classical arts, which, for its founders at the time, were largely embodied in Western classical music. However, that did not keep them from bringing in proponents from Indian classical arts into its fold.

Today, the NCPA’s scope includes dance, Indian classical music, theatre and concerts, and also an indigenous orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of India. It houses three theatres and an art gallery, a library that has some of the best books on folk art and theatre, and a priceless collection of operas and symphonies, besides a warren of offices, rehearsal spaces and green rooms.

the façade of the original NCPA building

“It was conceptualised as a centre for the classical arts and even named as the national centre for the classical, traditional and contemporary arts and sciences or performances and communication,” says NCPA Chairman Khushroo Suntook. “Apart from being a mouthful, the name and original charter for the centre did not make the cut because of tax considerations.” The rules allowed for a 125 per cent tax reduction if you were a research centre. “But what arts centre makes profits?”

As it is with many such grand institutions, the NCPA was born out of indefatigable passion and unconditional corporate support. The two men who drove and built the centre were Tata and Jamshed Bhabha, patron of the arts and music, and trustee of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. Bhabha spent his life and fortune building the centre because he believed it had to be done.

In an article titled “The JRD I knew”, Bhabha wrote, “No similar institution had been funded and nurtured for the arts and humanities, which form an important part of India’s legacy. With the powerful support of JRD and Professor Rustum Choksi, then the Trust’s managing trustee, a decision was taken to allocate an initial contribution of Rs 40 lakh…”

Deepika Sorabjee, head (arts and culture) at the Tata Trusts, says the two institutions have enjoyed a longstanding partnership. “With the Trusts’ support, the NCPA was the first to create a sustainable platform supporting the ecosystem of performing arts both through practice and discourse,” she says.

Inside the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre

The NCPA has grown substantively beyond what its founders planned for it. Bhabha and his brother Homi, a nuclear physicist and founder of India’s nuclear research programme, loved the orchestra, the opera and the grand symphonies of the masters. Bhabha was fanatical about western classical music and while he spent 60 years working for the Tata Group, he lost no opportunity to indulge in his passion. Suntook recalls rushing to Bhabha’s side as he struggled to keep a steady breath on his deathbed. “‘Don’t forget to do the Beethoven symphonies’, he said. Bhabha died three months before we could play the ninth, his favourite,” Suntook says.

Bhabha saw the need for a multi-cultural centre and sought out people from other areas, too. Speaking to Business Standard earlier, Suvarnalata Rao, programming head, Indian music, at the NCPA, had said, “Our first director was P L Deshpande. He created an endowment for up-and-coming artistes to be taken around the state.” Over the years, doyens from other disciplines have also stepped in to make the centre truly multi-cultural. Vijaya Mehta, well-known stage and screen actor, helmed the centre for several years.

While Bhabha was the moving force behind the NCPA, there were several others standing by his side: politicians who saw his point of view, local leaders who understood the need for an arts centre even if they did not share his eclectic taste in music and the city’s privileged set who bought into the dream of a “multi-genre centre for the 20th and 21st centuries in the 1960s”, says Suntook.

He tells the story of how the plot was bagged by Bhabha with great relish. Things were getting rather frayed as the hunt for an appropriate spot was leading nowhere. One day, the state minister who Gandhi had assigned the task brought Bhabha and JRD to the edge of Marine Drive where the Oberoi Hotel was still being built. Pointing to the blue waters of the Arabian Sea, he said, “Here is your land.” Bhabha did not hesitate for a moment, “We will take it,” he said.

In his ode to JRD, Bhabha wrote, “He (JRD) played a valuable role in persuading the state minister concerned at the time, Balasaheb Desai, to agree to add to the already sanctioned area of 5 acres an additional area of 3 acres, which had been earmarked by government for a park. Finally, therefore, the total area allotted by the Maharashtra government for the NCPA amounted to the present total of 8 acres (approximately 32,000 square metres).”

Bhabha was a stickler for perfection. Even when it came to ordering lunch for the executives at the Tata Group, he would ask for a complete brief on the menu from the Taj managing director, recalls an old hand.

So when it came to building the NCPA and the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre that is housed inside it, he exhibited even greater control. The best acoustician of the time was summoned to India and an auditorium was built such that even a slight whisper on stage would be heard at the end of the room without a microphone.

Money was spent without a care for the returns. Perhaps it was the time and the people who believed in such passions, says a young theatre artiste who says she does not see such commitment to the arts any more. While many vouch for this, they also point to the many eccentricities that such passion bred.

Suntook recalls the story of one extremely famous artiste who shall remain unnamed. He asked for a microphone to play at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre. But when Bhabha told him he would not need one, the artiste threw a tantrum and threatened to pull out. Bhabha reportedly stood his ground and said, “All right, that is the door.” As the artiste, who was not used to such brusque behaviour from his patrons, stared at him stunned, Bhabha walked around from behind his desk and said, “Now that we have settled the matter, let us go have a cup of tea.”

Suntook calls Bhabha a true Renaissance man, who travelled the world and carried a universe of interests inside him. Bhabha willed his estate and the iconic family bungalow, Mehrangir, on Malabar Hill to the NCPA. He died in 2007 but the centre had a battle on its hands when it tried to sell the home to raise money for its work. Several citizen groups objected and the government was urged to step in to protect the home of India’s first nuclear physicist. The bungalow was eventually sold for over Rs 3.5 billion to a section of the Godrej family.

The money will be the oil that drives the centre’s future plans: music and dance programmes, a wider canvas for the Symphony Orchestra of India, a research and education institution that would offer artistes and art administrators a steady career path, and many such. Of course, there is the infrastructure that will be taken care of, too, says Suntook who would love to see the centre move towards a more sustainable future in his lifetime.