Chandigarh loses theatre artiste Gurcharan Channi to Covid-19

Chandigarh woke up on Thursday to the sad news of theatre and film artiste Gurcharan Singh Channi losing a long battle with Covid-19 at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research

Chandigarh woke up on Thursday to the sad news of theatre and film artiste Gurcharan Singh Channi losing a long battle with Covid-19 at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research.

Theatre and film artiste Gurcharan Singh Channi (October 19, 1951 – May 20, 2021) (HT file photo)

Channi, 69, is survived by wife Harleen Kohli and children Gyan Dev and Sukhmani.

A recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and a Fulbright scholar, Channi was among the pioneers who enriched the arts. He belonged to Patiala and came to Chandigarh to study theatre in the first year of the Department of Indian Theatre founded by veteran Punjabi playwright Balwant Gargi in 1972. Recalling those days, his classmate Rani Balbir says, “He was a natural actor who could innovate at the spur of the moment. He loved to clown and charm and was the dearest classmate and close friend for a lifetime.”

Street theatre times

It was here that he found a mentor and friend in Gargi, who could see the spark in this handsome youngster, and encouraged him to join the National School of Drama (NSD) in Delhi in its splendid days with Abraham Alkazi as director. Passing out of the NSD, Channi chose the city of Chandigarh as his playground for street theatre, taking students from the city’s College of Arts and staging amazing productions such as Daffa 144 and Disturbed Area among others. He groomed the students in theatre and many of them went on to become established names in different fields.

Photographer Diwan Manna says, “We came from villages, worked with Channi and learned much from him. We owe what we are to him for he had imbibed well the skills he learned from Gargi and Alkazi.”

Others who were part of the street theatre team included celebrated dancer Navtej Johar and artistes such as late Naresh Pandit and Viney Vadhera. “His foresight and contacts were great, and we performed at the Gateway of India in Mumbai with writer Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and director Imtiaz Khan in the audience. He also invited the famous Badal Sarkar from Kolkata to do a workshop with us in Chandigarh,” says Manna.

Dynamic artiste

Channi believed in going miles before he rested and worked as a television producer with Jalandhar Doordarshan, making innovative programmes and tele-films based on Punjabi literature. He went on to become a professor at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.

Chandigarh, however, remained his favourite and he set up the NGO Centre for Education and Voluntary Action (CEVA) doing community theatre and making commissioned films.

Many remember him still as the face of protest at Jallianwala Bagh in Richard Attenborough’s famous 1982 film, Gandhi. He was given this role by casting director Dolly Thakore, another theatre veteran. Thakore recalled with love; “He bought his first fridge with the ₹4000 that we paid him and named it Dolly. This was an endearing story he loved to relate.”

With tributes flooding social media, his actor-director friend Kamal Tewari said: “May all have the strength and courage to bear the loss of this dynamic artiste.”