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