My Father, Alyque

“I discovered my father as an adult. Over time, he’s become my confidant, always more friend than father.”

“I discovered my father as an adult. Over time, he’s become my confidant, always more friend than father.”

My father, Alyque Padamsee and I discovered each other as parent and child quite late. When I was a child, my father was a strange being who visited me often. He was someone I knew was my father, but never really had a connection with. I would meet him daily for half an hour and later, when I was in Rishi Valley boarding school, in Andhra Pradesh, he would come and visit me for three days.

We don’t share a conventional father-son rapport. Our relationship is based on a completely different set of rules. It is a lot of chatting and sharing rather than permission and grounding. Usually, one finds that the mum is the lenient one and the dad the authoritarian. But then, my father did not live with me when I was growing up.

And I miss sharing those father-son moments. My father never taught me how to shave, a senior in boarding school did. My dad was always more advisor than parent.

However, after I turned 14, we went on a holiday together and that was when we really connected. I discovered my father when I was more of an adult. Over time, he’s become my confidant, always more friend than father.

Initially, it wasn’t easy to accept the situation. It took a while to sort it all out. It was the birth of my little sister Shazahn, which was a turning point in our life and relationships. She was a joy as a child, she could melt away all differences. In fact, a large part of getting over it was Shazahn. So the early adolescent problem of the feeling that I came from a broken home was shared. I grew out of the ‘everyone has a father and I don’t’ syndrome, quite quickly. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that my father, has always insisted that all his children, Raell, Shazahn and I, connected, which was a strong factor in bringing us together. It was a very different family model— a largish nuclear family with Pearl and Raell, Sharon and Shazahn and mum (Dolly Thakore) and I. And we could turn to each other for anything.

One of the most humbling moments in my life was when I saw my dad receive the Padma Shri Award. He insisted I come along with Sharon and Shazahn to Rashtrapati Bhavan. It was a moment of great pride and it felt special to be included on dad’s big day. That day, I truly got a sense of my dad’s work.

It sounds strange, I wasn’t ever aware of his achievements until I moved back to Bombay to study at St Xavier’s College. I knew he had done plays and was doing well in advertising, but somehow, it never really struck me. Then one day, I went for lunch with a close friend of a family member and he told me about dad’s accomplishments.

For a while, my dad and I worked on some productions together. At rehearsals, he insisted everyone call him AP. I was no exception. It was awkward, but it helped me to maintain a professional relationship at work. On the sets of Begum Sumroo (1997), my professional title was that of an assistant to the director. My actual work was to make sure that chai reached all the actors. I remember an entire rehearsal at the Homi Bhabha auditorium where I sat on the edge of the stage and shouted all of AP’s instructions to the folks backstage.

I think I learnt a lot doing just that. His attention to detail and tireless energy is amazing. Getting the most out your actors is something I have learnt from my dad. Later, I worked on his third version of Evita (1999), where I understood the technical aspects of staging a play and how to handle multi-media. Seven years ago, my company, Q Theatre Productions, even produced his version of Romeo and Juliet. It was a huge production. We were a 45-person unit. In hindsight, I feel, I was a bit too young to produce a play of that scale. I think I am much more prepared as a producer today. That said, it did teach me a lot—how to do things and how not to. I walked through fire. I applied the lessons I learnt from R&J, while working on Tim Supple’s adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where I was assistant director.

My dad’s productions are very different from mine. We pursue different kinds of theatre. I like to work in an intimate setting with my actors, while he prefers grand productions. At the dinner table, it’s very rare that we agree on the choices of each other’s play. But given a chance, I’d have loved to work on his incredible production of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Even as an actor, AP has his own command. I realised this when I was rehearsing a scene with him for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. There was AP, Farrokh Mehta and myself. I was all of 25 then and thought, ‘I know Miller’s work, I know my lines and the intentions behind it’. I was all set. But when I went into rehearsal with the two stalwarts, something hit me. I realised these two men were sweeping the floor. And I discovered that they had lived their characters, that they truly understood the meaning of the lines they said. So they made poetry out of the words. When I watched him essay the role of Jinnah in the film Gandhi, it was fantastic.

Like my father, I too pursued advertising for a while. I was a copywriter with McCann Erickson. Though some people did compare me with him, I never let that affect me. In fact, my first boss did something fantastic on the first day of my job. He ordered me to get in the car and I did. He turned to his colleagues and joked that he had just ordered the son of the ‘God of Indian advertising’. Back then, there were three key people in advertising—Gerson da Cunha, Kersey Katrak and AP. And all of them did theatre in the evenings. They were instrumental in making me understand that I need to pursue something along side theatre. Mainly because they knew there is little money in theatre. So choosing advertising with theatre was quite natural. I finished work at 5 pm and went to rehearsal by 6. But advertising has changed today. And I’d end up late for the rehearsals of my own play, which is absurd. I had to make a choice. I’d always wanted theatre to be a part of my life so I decided to quit advertising. Everyone, my dad included, panicked. But the best thing about him is that he never interferes with my decisions. He lets me be.

At times, my dad can be very unassuming. This one time, he came to a dress rehearsal of one of my plays. He realised that rehearsal was on, so he waited outside for almost an hour. He entered only when there was an interval and handed over cake to the people backstage. Recently, he said he would catch my new production Project S.T.R.I.P when it came to South Bombay, which is closer to where he stays. But three days before the opening night, he called to ask if it were okay if he comes. He travelled for three hours to reach Juhu, which is quite a big deal. Five minutes before the show started, he wished everyone. Three days later, he rang me up to gave his feedback. I value his opinion. It is great to have a resource like him, just a phone call away.

Once, he called me up at four in the morning and said, “I’m near your house at a discotheque,” and I was like, “Sure, but I am asleep.” That’s my dad!

Earlier, I had a 45-minute lunch slot to catch up with him, and then he would rush off for another meeting. Now, I can spend hours at his place and the time we spend is cherished.

(As told to Reema Gehi)

Quasar Thakore Padamsee flirted briefly with advertising but gave it up quickly for his true love, theatre. Earlier an actor, now director, Quasar has theatre in his blood. His father Alyque Padamsee and mother Dolly Thakore are both well-known theatrepersons. Quasar now has his own company in Mumbai called Q Theatre Productions.

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