Join us for an evening of fun with delightful tall tales from Tagore, presented by Bangalore Little Theatre (BLT), Bengaluru’s oldest English language theatre group.

Have you ever thought of Rabindranath Tagore as a comic entertainer? The poet could be really funny!

The material for Robi’s Garden is drawn from a great fund of Tagore’s writing, a lot of it for children, but enjoyed by grown-up audiences widely. These include verse, prose, short stories, plays, sketches (his ​“riddle plays”), fantasies, autobiographical writing, (especially his childhood memories), and letters to his granddaughter and other children. 

A small group of children is on an excursion to Jorasanko where Tagore’s ancestral home is located in Kolkata. They enter the courtyard theatre in Thakur-badi and sense a magical air surrounding them. The caretaker of the estate shares an important mantra of Robi-da with the children – that the first step in getting what you want in life is imagination. It is the surest way to have Robi-da’s stories come alive on the courtyard stage. 

Vijay Padaki is a theatre educator based in Bengaluru. He has worn two caps all his life. One of them is in management, with a special interest in organisation and institutional development. 

He was part of the founding faculty of IIM Bangalore. The other cap is in theatre, being associated with Bangalore Little Theatre (BLT) from its inception. He is particularly committed to dissemination in the theatre, which is reflected in his long track record in writing and training. 

Vijay was responsible for several long-term thrusts of BLT. One of them is the highly acclaimed Courtyard Theatre programme – plays performed by just two actors in a wide variety of spaces. He has written over 50 original plays in English.

Minti Jain, the fellow actor, is a theatre educator in Bangalore Little Theatre. She is a trained trainer-facilitator, besides being an experienced actor and dancer. She is the current Coordinator of BLT’s Education Enrichment programme and at the forefront of Theatre-in-Education (TIE).

Her team developed the original methodology in TIE for Sustainability Education in schools.