This was to be the first of three plays, Vijay and I did together. 

Vijay Crishna played Adolf Hitler in the play, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, by Bertolt Brecht. Illustration/Uday Mohite

Vijay Crishna was one of life’s unusual men. He came from Calcutta in the 70s to work with my father — to get into advertising and marketing, to pursue the theatre, to absorb Bombay.

I first met Vijay Crishna when I was maybe ten. He had twinkling, mischievous eyes. He had the ability to reach out to people with his wicked sense of humour. I was to know this man, through various stages of my life, as one of my dad’s closest friends, as an actor par excellence, whom I had the good fortune to direct.

Vijay Crishna loved to act, he lived to act. And I had my first one on one engagement with him in 1984.

When I began my directorial journey, the late great Burjor Patel, asked Shernaz, his daughter, and me, if he could produce, “Nuts” a play I was contemplating, with her in the lead. He took it a step further, “Should I ask........

© Midday