A DRAMATIC LIFE

Written by his daughter, this biography humanises the towering cultural figure that was Ebrahim Alkazi

- Ruchir Joshi

India's Ebrahim Alkazi was one of the truly great generative cultural figures of post-Independence India. Born into a wealthy family, he made maximum use of his good fortune, uniting that with sharply intelligent hard work to contribute massively, particularly in the fields of theatre and the visual arts. Beginning his career in Bombay during that city's most fecund period as India's cultural capital, he then moved to Delhi, becoming instrumental in transforming the bureaucratic backwater into a zone of huge artistic dynamism. For those of us who grew up in the decades between 1960 and 1980, Alkazi was already a legend, someone who seemed to be sitting at a great unreachable height atop the country's cultural peaks. Written by his daughter Amal Allana, this biography humanises Alkazi, allowing us to accompany an ambitious but hungrily curious young man as he follows his heart to pursue a caree