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Original plays have become scarce enough; coming across original screenplays is, in comparison, a virtually momentous event, particularly when they are good. The two screenplays by Vijay Tendulkar are not just good, they are fascinating and reveal another aspect of his genius, the ability to use dialogue and images together to create some riveting sequences that give events and characters a depth that narrative text tend to dilute.

THE LAST DAYS OF SARDAR PATEL & THE MIME PLAYERS By Vijay Tendulkar Permanent Black Price: Rs 275 Pages: 251

The Last Days of Sardar Patel is in fact the screenplay of the Ketan Mehta-directed film Sardar. Mehta had made major changes which Tendulkar graciously explains in his preface: "A film cannot be faithful to its screenplay. The needs of a film and the compulsions of filmmaking naturally cause it to stray from the written word." But he adds that he felt that his screenplay deserved to be put on record, a decision that one has to applaud.

Screenplays, like plays, stand on their own, as forms of expression that use the camera and sound just as a playwright uses the stage, sound and visual effects. The reader has to move into that world and accept the idiom, something that is as natural as reading poetry. In The Last Days ..., Tendulkar presents not just a chronicle of what Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel did but, as he himself says, "the multifaceted and most complex relationships between the three greats of that period, Gandhi, Nehru and Sardar". Small wonder then that they come to vivid, intense life in the screenplay. Consequently, the screenplay is less about them, the Sardar in particular, as ordinary human beings, and more about them as statesmen and leaders, and the tumultuous times through which the country passed under their stewardship. Through this emerges Sardar as a man of steely calm, determination and farsightedness which was often misunderstood. He has often been criticised for being communal but Tendulkar's screenplay, based on extensive research, shows him to be nothing of the kind.

SCREENPLAY WRITER: The other aspect of Tendulkar

The second screenplay, The Mime Players, is based on a short story in Bengali by Dibyendu Palit. On the surface, it is about a writer who is taken on by a touring mime company which presents brief pieces to village audiences extolling the virtues of a certain make of vitamin tablets. But there is much beneath this-violence (a perennial theme with Tendulkar) and passion, dark instincts and primal reactions to evil. Tendulkar uses the story of the mime players to present this and also the mime players themselves as presenters in a fascinating, at times gripping, manner all of which is not to be found in the original short story.

It would have made more sense if the screenplays had come first, with just Tendulkar's own preface and introduction. Madhu Limaye's foreword should have been the afterword and Ashish Nandy's interesting essay could have come right at the end. All these have been put together in the beginning, which is irritating. Read them in the order suggested; the screenplays emerge the richer.