Badal Sircar

Badal Sircar
Badal Sarkar in 2010
Born	Sudhindra Sircar (1925-07-15)15 July 1925 Kolkata
Died	13 May 2011(2011-05-13) Kolkata
Residence	Manicktala, Kolkata
Occupation	playwright, theatre director
Years active	1945–2011
Notable work	Ebong Indrajit (And Indrajit) (1963) Pagla Ghoda (Mad Horse) (1967)
Awards	1966 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award 1972 Padma Shri 1997 Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship

Badal Sircar (15 July 1925 – 13 May 2011), also known as Badal Sarkar, was an influential Indian dramatist and theatre director, most known for his anti-establishment plays during the Naxalite movement in the 1970s and taking theatre out of the proscenium and into public arena, when he founded his own theatre company, Shatabdi in 1976. He wrote more than fifty plays of which Ebong Indrajit, Basi Khabar, and Saari Raat are well known literary pieces, a pioneering figure in street theatre as well as in experimental and contemporary Bengali theatre with his egalitarian "Third Theatre", he prolifically wrote scripts for his Aanganmanch (courtyard stage) performances, and remains one of the most translated Indian playwrights. Though his early comedies were popular, it was his angst-ridden Ebong Indrajit (And Indrajit) that became a landmark play in Indian theatre. Today, his rise as a prominent playwright in 1960s is seen as the coming of age of Modern Indian playwriting in Bengali, just as Vijay Tendulkar did it in Marathi, Mohan Rakesh in Hindi, and Girish Karnad in Kannada.

He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1972, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1968 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour in the performing arts by Govt. of India, in 1997.

Badal Sircar, whose real name was 'Sudhindra Sarkar', was born in Calcutta, India. He was initially schooled at the Scottish Church Collegiate School. After transferring from the Scottish Church College, where his father was a history professor, he studied civil engineering at the Bengal Engineering College(now IIEST), Shibpur, then affiliated with the University of Calcutta. In 1992, he finished his Master of Arts degree in comparative literature from the Jadavpur University in Calcutta.