She always had the last word Neena Kulkarni remembers her close buddy Priya Tendulkar

Yogesh Pawar

Neena Kulkarni remembers her friend and fellow theatre-film-television actor Priya Tendulkar who passed away Thursday.

Priya was 42. Suffering from breast cancer, she succumbed to cardiac arrest.

I still think there's been a horrible mistake. She's not dead.

Though Priya and I knew each other since [our] college [days], it was not until my foray into Marathi stage, under the guidance of Vijayabai (Vijaya Mehta) in the late 1970s that I really got to know Priya.

We were all in awe of Vijay Tendulkar, her father and a giant among Marathi playwrights. The realisation that she was his daughter defined our relationship in the early years.

Her sophisticated Western dressing and her bold cocky gait took me aback. It shocked me. Though I studied at an English-medium convent school, the value system reinforced at home was essentially middle-class Maharashtrian. She was quite unlike anyone I knew.

Then she went on to become a front officer in a five-star hotel and an airhostess with the Indian Airlines after a few commercials, which I never stopped ribbing her about.

She would often complain about this hankering for conservatism among us Maharashtrians. She refused to accommodate those sensibilities. If you knew better, you never argued anything beyond a point [with her].

She always had the last word. That rapid speech delivery and her choice of words would leave many of us speechless. Language was her strong point --- it was in her genes.

We drew close after I began going to [Marathi theatre great] Satyadev Dubey to train where she would often drop in.

As she began making waves on Doordarshan (first Rajni and then Mr Ya Mrs, in which I acted in a few episodes directed by her with husband Karan Razdan), and on stage, we became our worst critics.

There was never a first day first staging of each other's work that we missed. There was always the hilarious mimicry, ribbing and suggestions on how to handle a particular gesture, sleight of hand, toss of the pallav. I particularly remember how beautifully she fit into the role of Padmini in Girish Karnad's Hayavadan. We often wondered what would happen if women were really given the choice of falling in love with two men simultaneously by society.

"Dokyala taapach adhik hoyil (We will have so much more of a headache)," she had squealed laughing.

At a time when many a seasoned actor had refused to step into Bhaktibai's (the late Bhakti Barve-Inamdar) shoes for Tee Phulrani (P L Deshpande's hugely successful adaptation of G B Shaw's Pygmalion), Priya agreed. She carried herself with aplomb.

It is amazing how a person like her remained intensely private and personal. She would never capitalise on her pain and sorrow. Even if someone were sympathetic during the problems in her marriage, she would just shrug and change the topic.

It was this internalised pain which shone through in her writing. True, many find a certain morbidity in her short stories but they are hard to put down. And what a choice of subjects. Most stories had ordinary women caught in extraordinary circumstances. They had a strong anti-victimisation theme.

Whether it was writing, acting, painting or being a host, she wore all her hats with elan.

She called me one late night in the mid-1980s, "I'm starting a new clothes line Anoushka (named after her niece). Come for the inauguration. There's lots of stuff you'll love."

As the years passed, she evolved into a warmer person. She would put an arm around me and proudly tell everyone, "Here's an example of someone who has managed to find the right balance between being mother, wife and managing a career."

It was horrible knowing that she kept the fact that she was battling cancer under wraps. Chemotherapy had made her lose hair, but she took pains to dress up for parties and dos. As her health failed, she became a bit of recluse.

I lost my father Dr Vasant Joshi August 8. On August 20, she sent me a touching SMS, apologising for not being there. She must have been quite unwell then. Yet she sent me a message. That's just the way she was.

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