Rs 1lakh fellowship to be given to 5 young theatre artists

PUNE: Sahitya Rangabhoomi Pratisthan will award a fellowship of Rs1 lakh each to five young theatre artists, to encourage creativity and motivate young talent in theatre.
The fellowships, named after Vijay Tendulkar and Satyadev Dubey, will be given to Bikram Ghosh, Ipshita Chakraborty Singh, Niranjan Pedanekar, Sapan Saran and Yugandhar Deshpande at Gharkul lawns on February 18.Each recipient will get 12 cheques, cashable every month.
“The fellowships were started 13 years ago by renowned playwright Vijay Tendulkar,” said Ashok Kulkarni of the city-based organization. “We were exploring ideas to utilize the funds that we had collected through various exhibitions,” Kulkarni said. That was when the idea for the fellowships was conceived.
The initial amount was exhausted in three years. The fellowship was funded for the next eight years by the Vinod and Saryu Doshi Foundation. This year’s fellowships were compiled through contributions by theatre enthusiasts. “For the past eight years we called them the ‘Vinod Doshi Fellowship’. This year, we are renaming it the Tendulkar-Dubey fellowship,” Kulkarni said.
The fellowships are unconditional, leaving the recipients free to decide how they would use the money.
“Tendulkar had once said that it is an artist’s to do as they please with the money,” Kulkarni said.
The recipients were selected by a panel of senior artists and former recipients. They will be conferred by renowned theatre personality Samik Bandhopadhyay.