Vastupal Tejpal
A Tale of Toil and Selfless Giving
Vastupal and Tejpal were brothers who rose to become ministers of the Vaghela court in thirteenth-century Gujarat, and who spent the fortune they built on the marble that still stands at Delvada on Mount Abu and at Girnar — carving so fine it remains among the highest achievements of Indian temple craft. Dineshbhai Modi's play is the story of how they got there. It does not open with the brothers. It opens a generation earlier, with a scandal. Kumardevi, widowed in her twelfth year and sent home two months after her wedding, is to be married again — to Asaraj, son of the minister of Patan — on the word of Acharya Haribhadrasuri, who has read her palm and been visited by Shasandevi with a prophecy: two sons of extraordinary lustre. Her father Abhu Sheth, who wants nothing more than his daughter's happiness, can only ask the question that stops him: widow remarriage — what will society say? His wife tells him to put society aside. The two sons of that defiant match are Vastupal and Tejpal. What follows is a chronicle of reversal and repair. Born to privilege, the brothers lose their wealth and keep their integrity, rebuild it through honest trade until they are among the foremost merchants in Gujarat, and are then raised to ministerial office, where they turn on the corruption and drift of the administration they have inherited. The poster called it a tale of toil and selfless giving — parishram ane parmarth — and the play holds both halves: the labour that makes a fortune, and the decision to spend it on something that outlasts you. Manoj Shah staged it on a grand scale, with Prasad Walavalkar's stone-palace set, Rajiv Bhatt's costumes, Bhotesh Vyas's lighting and Suresh Joshi's score, and a company of sixteen actors — among them a young Malhar Thakar, six years before Chhello Divas made him a name in Gujarati cinema. It was commissioned by the Jain Adhyatma Studies Circle Federation, whose lifetime chairman, Dineshbhai Modi, wrote it, and presented by Kaustubh Trivedi. It opened on a Sunday evening at Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, Nariman Point, on 31 May 2009.
Commissioned By
Jain Adhyatma Studies Circle Federation
Commissioned by the Jain Adhyatma Studies Circle Federation and presented by Kaustubh Trivedi. The script was written by Dineshbhai Modi, the Federation's lifetime chairman.
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Bhamasha
The Warrior Who Funded Freedom
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The Soul's Journey Through Worldly Illusion
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Apurva Avsar
The Spiritual Mentor of Mahatma Gandhi
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