A night remembering 'Pearl'

Pearl’s daughter (and a committed theatre personality) Raell Padamsee madethe city laugh, cry and sigh as she took them to revisit her mother’sdramatic genius, through an evening called ‘Celebrating Pearl’.Says Raell, “My mother Pearl, was one of the liveliest persons I’ve ever known — she was forever bursting with ideas and no barriers withstanding, would not rest till she ‘got on with the show’, as she would famously put it!” The evening saw excerpts from celebrated plays being enacted by some veteran actors like Dodo Bhujwalla, Gerson Da Cunha and Alyque Padamsee. The crème de lacrème of Mumbai turned up to raise a toast to the indomitable spirit ofthis enchanting woman. Quasar Thakore Padamsee, who helped Raell in handling thetechnicalities and Dolly Thakore, who sat in the front row, cheered for Pearl.The show also saw Anil Dharker take time out to attend; Remu and Naaz Zaveri,whose connection with theatre goes back a couple of decades; Esther and RajuDaswani, Nawaz Modi Singhania (who seems to be developing quite a flair for thearts); Pravina and Jamal Mecklai; Sameena and Azeem Khan (whose shocking redtrousers made quite a funky statement), Bharat Dabholkar, child artiste TanayChheda (who has been a student of Raell) and Ronnie Screwvala (who took chargeas the emcee of the evening, even as he surprised many by revealing his daysunder Pearl’s tutelage many years back.) The doyen of drama lives on inthe minds of her admirers.