Lamakaan

Perhaps Zora Neale Hurston's quote "Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose," prompted the Late Jayant Pawar, a renowned Marathi playwright and critic, to meet a Crematorium keeper in the Municipal Crematorium, Worli, Mumbai, to explore the intricacies of life – and the dead - there.
Adapted as a play by Sutradhar, Hyderabad from the not so publicized 1993 interview of the late Jayant Pawar with a Worli Municipal Crematorium keeper, it offers a no-holds barred peep into the lives of those who do not merely witness mortality, but inhabit its geography—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Hour after hour, day after day.
The interview termed as ‘mulaakhat’ and published in Marathi as PASSWALA has been translated by Vrushali Singh Bayas and devised and directed by Vinay Varma.
At the heart of the story is the crematorium keeper, K.G. Mohite, a man who’s seen thousands of bodies reduced to bone and ash, and yet wakes each morning to write a pass for another dead, have another pyre lit, and carry on with life. He’s someone who has long ceased to react, but has never ceased to observe. His presence is marked by endurance and not by emotion. His stoicism stems from a philosophy refined through years of disciplined proximity to the temporal world. He does not sentimentalize the dead, nor does he recoil from them. His silence is precise, deliberate, and functional. Surrounded by fire, grief, bureaucracy, human faeces and forgotten bodies, the keeper operates with an unflinching sense of duty. He neither resists nor embraces his environment—he inhabits it fully, as one might inhabit a vow.
Life continues for those who have made the crematorium their home. People go to work, carry their daily chores, dance and sing, argue, fall in love, and stay normal—while surrounded by death.
The story explores hard, often uncomfortable questions:
Is there a sensitive soul behind the calm and detached demeanour of the crematorium keeper?
How human rituals of joy—marriage, childbirth, and other celebrations—retain their vitality in a space designed for endings?
Are unclaimed bodies really cremated imperviously?
How does one preserve dignity and belief when surrounded by decay, stench and silence?
What mechanisms, rational or superstitious, do people devise to hold off the ‘imagined’ ghosts of the dead?
How is a burial spot identified so as to not disturb the already buried?
But underneath it all, Passwala isn’t just about death. It’s about what refuses to die: hope, absurdity, guilt, and the absurd persistence of laughter even when it shouldn't exist. Told with honesty and restraint, Passwala doesn't rely on spectacle or sentimentality. Instead, it quietly observes the rhythms of daily life in a place most people avoid. It is a story of survival, dignity, and human resilience. Of people who don’t choose to be near death, but find ways to live fully in its presence.
Come, watch how the custodians of death negotiate the fragile machinery of the living. Listen to the Philosophy of life – and death – explored through pauses, muted dialogues, resilience and routine gestures of a marginalized professional.
Although the setting of the play is Mumbai, the theme of life and death resonates across the universe. This play is particularly an eye opener for those who never visit a crematorium, for various reasons including fear!

Performing Classical Dance (Bharatnatyam)

Perhaps Zora Neale Hurston's quote "Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose," prompted the Late Jayant Pawar, a renowned Marathi playwright and critic, to meet a Crematorium keeper in the Municipal Crematorium, Worli, Mumbai, to explore the intricacies of life – and the dead - there.
Adapted as a play by Sutradhar, Hyderabad from the not so publicized 1993 interview of the late Jayant Pawar with a Worli Municipal Crematorium keeper, it offers a no-holds barred peep into the lives of those who do not merely witness mortality, but inhabit its geography—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Hour after hour, day after day.
The interview termed as ‘mulaakhat’ and published in Marathi as PASSWALA has been translated by Vrushali Singh Bayas and devised and directed by Vinay Varma.
At the heart of the story is the crematorium keeper, K.G. Mohite, a man who’s seen thousands of bodies reduced to bone and ash, and yet wakes each morning to write a pass for another dead, have another pyre lit, and carry on with life. He’s someone who has long ceased to react, but has never ceased to observe. His presence is marked by endurance and not by emotion. His stoicism stems from a philosophy refined through years of disciplined proximity to the temporal world. He does not sentimentalize the dead, nor does he recoil from them. His silence is precise, deliberate, and functional. Surrounded by fire, grief, bureaucracy, human faeces and forgotten bodies, the keeper operates with an unflinching sense of duty. He neither resists nor embraces his environment—he inhabits it fully, as one might inhabit a vow.
Life continues for those who have made the crematorium their home. People go to work, carry their daily chores, dance and sing, argue, fall in love, and stay normal—while surrounded by death.
The story explores hard, often uncomfortable questions:
Is there a sensitive soul behind the calm and detached demeanour of the crematorium keeper?
How human rituals of joy—marriage, childbirth, and other celebrations—retain their vitality in a space designed for endings?
Are unclaimed bodies really cremated imperviously?
How does one preserve dignity and belief when surrounded by decay, stench and silence?
What mechanisms, rational or superstitious, do people devise to hold off the ‘imagined’ ghosts of the dead?
How is a burial spot identified so as to not disturb the already buried?
But underneath it all, Passwala isn’t just about death. It’s about what refuses to die: hope, absurdity, guilt, and the absurd persistence of laughter even when it shouldn't exist. Told with honesty and restraint, Passwala doesn't rely on spectacle or sentimentality. Instead, it quietly observes the rhythms of daily life in a place most people avoid. It is a story of survival, dignity, and human resilience. Of people who don’t choose to be near death, but find ways to live fully in its presence.
Come, watch how the custodians of death negotiate the fragile machinery of the living. Listen to the Philosophy of life – and death – explored through pauses, muted dialogues, resilience and routine gestures of a marginalized professional.
Although the setting of the play is Mumbai, the theme of life and death resonates across the universe. This play is particularly an eye opener for those who never visit a crematorium, for various reasons including fear!