“I was barely 10 or 11 when I watched the performance,” recalls actor Vinay Varma, talking about Babban Khan, his memory rooted in the kind of age where everything leaves a mark. “A very impressionable age to get carried away by comical performances on stage.”
What stayed with him wasn’t just the laughter, it was the language. “It was also enjoyable as it was being presented in the Hyderabadi dialect, which has undergone changes since then,” he says. But even as the humour landed, he admits, “I am not sure if the message of family planning really served its purpose as entertainment took centre stage.”
For him, the magic of Babban’s iconic play, ‘Adrak ke Panje’ lay in its immediacy. “The impeccable timing, the uninhibited performances of even the child actors, the local phrases and idioms had an instant connect with the audience.” It wasn’t a polished theatre, it was alive, raw, and recognisable.
He remembers how the stage at Ravindra Bharati came alive. “The stage was used to its fullest extent. If not anything, his marketing strategy was remarkable.”
The story of that strategy has become part of theatre folklore. “The first few shows were poorly attended and then he used filmy publicity. He put up a board of HOUSEFULL outside despite the sparse crowd inside.” And then came the masterstroke. “Advertisements in the film page of local newspapers with film stars, most notably the late Dilip Kumar shown laughing his heart out in the stills.”
“The trick worked,” Varma says, adding, “There was no looking back. The rest as they say became history.”
The reach of Babban Khan seeped into everyday life. Varma laughs as he recalls, “As a child I was skinny and had big incisors teeth too, owing to which my classmates used to call me Babban Khan. That speaks of his popularity.”
But the arc didn’t last.
“Sadly he couldn’t go beyond that and never could script another play leave alone perform one,” Varma reflects. “Soon its time was up as the subject itself lost its relevance, and comedy has a life too.”
What troubles him more is what followed. “Reflecting back on ‘Adrak Ke Panje’, much as it is talked about for the lingo there’s never a discussion on the content. Theatre, like any other discipline demands constant growth and evolution.”
And then he adds, “The man himself sadly became irrelevant and woh gumnaami mein kho gaye.”
There were attempts to restart. “Desperate situations lead to desperate measures,” Varma says. “He had started a film school with his name in Shanti Nagar which apparently didn’t do well. Unfortunately he remained stuck with Adrak Ke Panje.”
For Varma, the story is larger than one man. “This raises a larger question of communication in our native languages for better understanding. Education, theatre etc.”
In the end, what remains is both admiration and caution. A man who once filled conversations, headlines, and theatre halls, sometimes even before the audience arrived, left behind a legacy that still echoes, even if the voice itself faded.
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