Multi-Tasking na Maharaja: Shishir Ramavat on Pratik Gandhi

In a detailed Gujarati profile for the Sandesh newspaper's Sanskar Purti supplement, journalist and playwright Shishir Ramavat — himself the writer of Hu Chandrakant Bakshi — profiled Pratik Gandhi ahead of the historic three-language performance at Prithvi Theatre.

Ramavat opens by noting the apparent contradiction: engineering and MBA graduates are not supposed to coexist with the worlds of acting, writing, and music. Yet Pratik Gandhi — a Deputy General Manager at Reliance — has built a formidable parallel career on the Gujarati stage and in cinema. The article calls him a case study in itself.

The piece traces Gandhi's theatre journey with Manoj Shah and Ideas Unlimited, from his early ensemble roles through to the solo biographical plays that defined his craft: Hu Chandrakant Bakshi, where he inhabited the controversial Gujarati writer, and Mohan No Masalo, where he plays young Mohandas Gandhi. Ramavat notes that these two collaborations solidified Gandhi's reputation as an actor of immense range.

On the upcoming Limca Book of Records attempt, Ramavat explains that Gandhi will perform the same play in Gujarati, Hindi, and English on the same day at the same theatre — a feat requiring not just linguistic fluency but the ability to inhabit three subtly different emotional registers of the same character. The article includes Shah's observation that Gandhi is 'like a potter's wheel' — each language presents a new challenge that he meets with apparent ease.

The article concludes by noting Gandhi's film work in Bey Yaar and Yours Emotionally, positioning him as a new kind of Gujarati artist: one who refuses to choose between the corporate world and the creative one, between commercial cinema and serious theatre, between mainstream success and artistic integrity.