PICTURE SPEAK

NO LIGHTWEIGHT: Dhingra in his Lodhi Road showroom

For R.K. Dhingra and his friend Chaman Lal, who started the company way back in the 1960s, illuminating stage shows at that time meant having to peddle 150-watt lights improvised out of tin cans of Dalda vanaspati. They would ferry their ware across the city on a ramshackle bicycle. But the tin cans posed a problem-they would heat up very fast. The enterprising duo soon overcame that by convincing a visiting American dance troupe to part with some of its lighting equipment. Improvisation followed and the shadows fell away.

After Lal's death, Dhingra, 65, is now the sole proprietor of MSS and goes about his job with the same robust zeal that he did 40 years ago. As he instructs a technician to narrow a wide beam of light in his Lodhi Road showroom, situated in Delhi's Mehar Chand Market, the spotlight of success is literally on him. Reminisces Dhingra, "In our early days in this profession, people would refer to us as arre woh bijliwala aaya hai." Formal recognition came in 2000 when the Sangeet Natak Academy conferred on him an award for designing lights.

Veteran stage actor Kulbhushan Kharbanda has fond memories of his association with MSS during his stint with the theatre group Yatrik in Delhi. "We couldn't imagine the kind of lights MSS started producing at that time," he recalls. "Even now, whenever I travel to other cities, theatre people talk highly about their quality. MSS is undoubtedly the master in this field." High praise from a man who has for long enjoyed the very spotlight Dhingra has shaped.

Besides Kharbanda's shows, Dhingra has been in charge of lighting in productions of celebrated theatre personalities like Alyque Padamsee, Sai Paranjpe, Barry John and Habib Tanvir. A regular face in theatre circles, he now occasionally attends National School of Drama classes and his fame has spread far and wide to countries like Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Today, auditoriums, college campuses, community and cultural centres across the country bear the mark of his lighting expertise. Yesteryear's bijliwala has emerged as today's torch-bearer when it comes to lighting up the arts.

Index