Mahesh Elkunchwar (born 9 October 1939) is an Marathi playwright, screenwriter and actor. In addition to the over 20 plays he has written, Elkunchwar has also authored theoretical writings and critical works.
He is credited as one of the most influential and progressive playwrights not only just in Marathi theatre, but also in Indian theatre. In 2014, he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship.
Early life and education Born to a 9th generation Telugu Brahmin migrant family in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Elkunchwar left home at the age of four to be raised outside of Indian urban centres. As films and theatre were taboo in his family, he saw his first play when he moved to Nagpur for his matriculation.
He studied at Morris College, and went on to do a Master of Arts in English at Nagpur University. While still in college, he saw veteran theatre director Vijaya Mehta's production of Vijay Tendulkar's Mee jinkalo mee Haralo (I Won, I Lost) in 1965. Deeply influenced by the play, he went to watch the play again the following day and decided to begin writing plays himself. He devoted the next year to reading plays of all kind.
Career He taught English literature at Dharampeth Arts, Commerce College, Nagpur and M. P. Deo Memorial Science College, Nagpur, until retiring as its Head in 1999. He was a guest professor of screen play-writing at the Film and Television Institute, Pune in 2000–2001. He taught as a visiting professor at the National school of Drama, New Delhi for a number of years.
Elkunchwar has experimented with many forms of dramatic expression, ranging from the realistic to symbolic, expressionist to absurd theatre with theme ranging from creativity to life, sterility to death and has influenced modern Indian theatre for more than three decades. Elkunchwar emerged onto the national theatre scene with the publication of his one-act play Sultan in 1967 in noted literary magazine Satyakatha. This play was immediately noticed by Vijaya Mehta; she went on to direct four of his early plays, including Holi and Sultan in 1969 and 1970 for Rangayan. A number of commercial hits followed such as Holi (1969), Raktapushpa (1971), Party (1972), Virasat (1982), and Atamkatha (1987).
Considered a successor to Vijay Tendulkar, Elkunchwar's plays are written in Marathi, the Indian language that is spoken by approximately 90 million people. The plays have been subsequently translated into multiple Indian and Western languages (including English, French and German).
In 1984, his play Holi was made into the film Holi by Ketan Mehta, for which he wrote the screenplay. In the same year, Govind Nihalani directed a film, Party, based on his eponymous play. Sonata (2017), a film starring Aparna Sen, Shabana Azmi and Lilette Dubey was based on Elkunchwar's eponymous play.
Elkunchwar has also written essays, collected in a volume titled Maunraag. The collection has been noted for its contributions to the genre and was cited as the book of the decade in 2012. The essays combine autobiographical and meditative elements.
In 2026, Elkunchwar's play Eka Natacha Mrityu, written in 2005, received its first stage production after remaining unstaged for over two decades. Directed by Atul Pethe and featuring Abhay Mahajan in the title role, the production premiered at The Box in Pune from 9 to 12 July 2026, with Elkunchwar in attendance. It was subsequently presented from 24 to 26 July 2026 as the inaugural production at the newly established Rangmandap theatre in Nagpur.
Works Plays Rudravarsha (The Savage Year), 1966 Holi (one act) Sultan (one act), 1967 Zumbar (one act), 1967 Eka Mhatarachya Khoon (An Old Man's Murder; one act), 1968 Kaifiyat (one act), 1967 Ek Osad Gaon (one act), 1969 Yatanaghar (The Chamber of Anguish), 1970 Garbo, 1970 Raktapushpa (Flowers of Blood), 1971 Vasanakand (The Episode of Lust), 1972 Party, 1976 Wada Chirebandi (Old Stone Mansion), 1985 Pratibimb (Reflection), 1987 Atmakatha (Autobiography), 1988 Magna Talyakathi (The Pond), 1991 Yuganta (The End of an Epoch/Apocalypse), 1994 Wasansi Jeernani (Tattered Clothes), 1995 Dharmaputra (Godson), 1998 Sonata, 2000 Eka Natacha Mrityu (An Actor's Death), 2005
Other works Maunraag: collection of essays, Mouj Prakashan Paschimprabha: collection of essays, Chakshu prakashan Baatcheet: Interviews, Rajhans Prakashan Saptak: lectures, Rajhans prakashan Tribandh: Three essays, Mouj Prakashan Vinashavela (translation), Mouj Prakashan
Translated works Manjula Padmanabhan The Wada Trilogy, published by Seagull Books in 2004 Collected Plays of Mahesh Elkunchwar Volume I. Oxford University Press, 2008 Collected Plays of Mahesh Elkunchwar Volume II. Oxford University Press, 2011
Awards and recognition Sangeet Natak Academi Award, 1989 Nandikar, 1989 Maharashtra Gaurav, 1990 Maharashtra Foundation for "Yugant”, 1997 Sahitya Akademi Award for his Trilogy Yugant Saraswati Samman, 2002 Janasthan, 2011 Brittingham Visiting Scholar, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, 2005 Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, 2013 Kalidas Samman, 2014-2015 Go. Ni. Dandekar Puraskar, 2016 Vinda Karandikar Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar, 2018
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