Veteran theatre director-actor Aamir Raza Husain dies at 66; Akhilesh & Tharoor pay tribute

By PTI

Theatre director-actor Aamir Raza Husain dies at 66

NEW DELHI: Veteran theatre director-actor Aamir Raza Husain, recognized for his larger-than-life outdoor stage productions, died proper right here on the age of 66.

Husain was affected by a heart-related ailment and handed away on Saturday, his son talked about.

“He was hospitalised for two days and had undergone heart surgery, but wasn’t able to recover. He passed away yesterday,” Husain’s son Ghulam Ali Abbas knowledgeable PTI.

Having produced and acted in a variety of performs, along with over 91 productions and 1,000 plus performances with Stagedoor Theatre Company as its ingenious director, Husain was best recognized for stage spectacles resembling “The Fifty Day War”, based totally on the 1999 Kargil War, and “The Legend of Ram”, impressed by the Hindu epic Ramayana.

He moreover appeared throughout the English film “Kim” (1984), based totally on Rudyard Kipling’s novel of the similar determine, which starred Peter O’ Toole throughout the lead, and the 2014 Bollywood movie “Khoobsurat”, that features Sonam Kapoor Ahuja and Pakistani actor Fawad Khan.

While “The Legend of Ram”, first staged in 1994, created waves with its a quantity of outdoor models unfold over 3 acres and a 100-member crew, “The Fifty Day War” went a step further — that features 140 actors, along with Indian Army personnel, models that switch on rails, a life-sized helicopter exploding and a revolving platform taking an viewers of 660-plus from one scene to a distinct.

Theatre director Feisal Alkazi, son of the late theatre doyen Ebrahim Alkazi, remembered Husain as “a wonderful director” who might visualise one other approach.

“He would do things on a grand scale. Perhaps the comparison can be with Feroz Khan’s production which is ‘Mughal-E-Azam: The Musical’ which has gone abroad. So, he would visualise things in a very different kind of way. He had enough drive and ambition to find funds and the backing,” Alkazi knowledgeable PTI.

Hailing from an aristocratic Awadhi family of Lucknow, Husain was born in 1957 and was despatched to Ajmer’s Mayo College on the age 10 in 1968.

After ending his schooling, he went on to test historic previous at St Stephen’s College, New Delhi, the place he acted in quite a few performs, rubbing shoulders with well-known directors resembling Joy Michael, Barry John, and Marcus Murch.

Husain was honoured with Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India, in 2001 for his immense contribution to theatre.

In 2010, the Delhi-based thespian revived his manufacturing “Move Over”, first staged on the official farewell function of President Shankar Dayal Sharma in 1997.

It was staged in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata and a variety of different cities all through India.

Several well-known personalities took to social media to mourn the dying of the eminent theatre character.

“Aarya” actor Vikas Kumar took to Instagram to pay homage to “one of my theatre gurus”.

He carried out a variety of roles in Husain’s “The Fifty Day War” and “The Legend of Ram”.

“Thank you, Aamir, for all the entertainment, for all the opportunities, for all the learnings. Alas, my wish to be directed by you in one of your comedies will stay unfulfilled,” Kumar wrote in a heartfelt tribute.

Notably, Husain as quickly as served as vice chairman of Delhi BJP.

He resigned from the put up in July 2013 after his assertion in direction of the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi anguished the get collectively administration.

Senior Congress chief Shashi Tharoor, who was moreover Husain’s senior at St Stephen College, remembered him as a “larger-than-life” character and recalled the time when he directed the “theatre giant” in an adaptation of the court-martial scene from American author Joseph Heller’s primary play “Catch 22” .

“I met him at St Stephen’s College when, as a talented fresher, he was cast in “Antony & Cleopatra”. I then directed him in an adaptation of the court-martial scene from “Catch 22″ in a one-act play competition. Decades later I had the pleasure of meeting him again as a theatre giant & watching a couple of his plays. His passion & commitment defined him. He was larger than life, & today it seems life could not contain him & all that he offered it,” Tharoor wrote in a tweet.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav too condoled Husain’s demise.

“He was a true icon of Indian culture and his contributions to the world of theatre will be remembered for generations to come. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time,” he tweeted.

Husain is survived by wife-actor Viraat Talwar, and their two children Kaniz Sukaina and Ghulam Ali Abbas.

Theatre director-actor Aamir Raza Husain dies at 66

NEW DELHI: Veteran theatre director-actor Aamir Raza Husain, recognized for his larger-than-life outdoor stage productions, died proper right here on the age of 66.googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.present(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2′); );

Husain was affected by a heart-related ailment and handed away on Saturday, his son talked about.

“He was hospitalised for two days and had undergone heart surgery, but wasn’t able to recover. He passed away yesterday,” Husain’s son Ghulam Ali Abbas knowledgeable PTI.

Having produced and acted in a variety of performs, along with over 91 productions and 1,000 plus performances with Stagedoor Theatre Company as its ingenious director, Husain was best recognized for stage spectacles resembling “The Fifty Day War”, based totally on the 1999 Kargil War, and “The Legend of Ram”, impressed by the Hindu epic Ramayana.

He moreover appeared throughout the English film “Kim” (1984), based totally on Rudyard Kipling’s novel of the similar determine, which starred Peter O’ Toole throughout the lead, and the 2014 Bollywood movie “Khoobsurat”, that features Sonam Kapoor Ahuja and Pakistani actor Fawad Khan.

While “The Legend of Ram”, first staged in 1994, created waves with its a quantity of outdoor models unfold over 3 acres and a 100-member crew, “The Fifty Day War” went a step further — that features 140 actors, along with Indian Army personnel, models that switch on rails, a life-sized helicopter exploding and a revolving platform taking an viewers of 660-plus from one scene to a distinct.

Theatre director Feisal Alkazi, son of the late theatre doyen Ebrahim Alkazi, remembered Husain as “a wonderful director” who might visualise one other approach.

“He would do things on a grand scale. Perhaps the comparison can be with Feroz Khan’s production which is ‘Mughal-E-Azam: The Musical’ which has gone abroad. So, he would visualise things in a very different kind of way. He had enough drive and ambition to find funds and the backing,” Alkazi knowledgeable PTI.

Hailing from an aristocratic Awadhi family of Lucknow, Husain was born in 1957 and was despatched to Ajmer’s Mayo College on the age 10 in 1968.

After ending his schooling, he went on to test historic previous at St Stephen’s College, New Delhi, the place he acted in quite a few performs, rubbing shoulders with well-known directors resembling Joy Michael, Barry John, and Marcus Murch.

Husain was honoured with Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India, in 2001 for his immense contribution to theatre.

In 2010, the Delhi-based thespian revived his manufacturing “Move Over”, first staged on the official farewell function of President Shankar Dayal Sharma in 1997.

It was staged in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata and a variety of different cities all through India.

Several well-known personalities took to social media to mourn the dying of the eminent theatre character.

“Aarya” actor Vikas Kumar took to Instagram to pay homage to “one of my theatre gurus”.

He carried out a variety of roles in Husain’s “The Fifty Day War” and “The Legend of Ram”.

“Thank you, Aamir, for all the entertainment, for all the opportunities, for all the learnings. Alas, my wish to be directed by you in one of your comedies will stay unfulfilled,” Kumar wrote in a heartfelt tribute.

Notably, Husain as quickly as served as vice chairman of Delhi BJP.

He resigned from the put up in July 2013 after his assertion in direction of the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi anguished the get collectively administration.

Senior Congress chief Shashi Tharoor, who was moreover Husain’s senior at St Stephen College, remembered him as a “larger-than-life” character and recalled the time when he directed the “theatre giant” in an adaptation of the court-martial scene from American author Joseph Heller’s primary play “Catch 22” .

“I met him at St Stephen’s College when, as a talented fresher, he was cast in “Antony & Cleopatra”. I then directed him in an adaptation of the court-martial scene from “Catch 22″ in a one-act play competition. Decades later I had the pleasure of meeting him again as a theatre giant & watching a couple of his plays. His passion & commitment defined him. He was larger than life, & today it seems life could not contain him & all that he offered it,” Tharoor wrote in a tweet.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav too condoled Husain’s demise.

“He was a true icon of Indian culture and his contributions to the world of theatre will be remembered for generations to come. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time,” he tweeted.

Husain is survived by wife-actor Viraat Talwar, and their two children Kaniz Sukaina and Ghulam Ali Abbas.