The Goan condoles the demise of one of the heavyweights of the Konkani stage; the iconic Shalini Mardolkar
Having ruled the tiatr stage for almost three decades, oneof the most powerful women of the stage, Shalini Mardolkar, passed away on Monday,January 7 in Mumbai.
Mardolkar was renowned for having been the star attraction ofseveral veteran tiatrists lineups.
These included the likes of Souzalino, C Alvares, JacintoVaz, Alfred Rose, M Boyer and many others.
Right from her early years, Mardolkar had a penchant foracting, and hence she formed the ‘Shalini Sangit Mandal’. She started off withMarathi drama before ambitiously attempting to find a place on the Gujarati,which she did with great success. Mardolkar then became a regular feature withmost Konkani tiatrists, before going on to star in Nirmonn, the secondproduction by playwright turned producer/ director Frank Fernand. Under thedirection of A Salam with screenplay and editing by R V Shirkhande, the filmwent on to bag two National Awards at the hands of India’s then Prime MinisterIndira Gandhi.
Performances by the cast in this film were lauded all-round,as the film won the Certificate of Merit for regional films at the 13thNational Film Awards, becoming the first Konkani movie to have done so.
Tiatr critic and journalist Daniel F De Souza, states, “Thepassing away of someone as iconic as Shalini Mardolkar is most regrettable. Shewas a mainstay of the stage from the 1950’s to the 1980’s. Though she stayedaway from the stage for a while after, her contribution cannot be ignored, especiallyas she was someone for the generations that followed to look up to. As a tiatrcritic, in my opinion, her greatest performance on stage was in M Boyer’stiatr, Ekuch Rosto, where she played the role of a traditional Hindu woman.”
But she was not limited by her religious beliefs, as shewent on to play the role of Mother Mary in a religious tiatr written anddirected by the late Souzalino to perfection, which won her acclaim with thetiatr fraternity.
Mardolkar is still fondly remembered for the popular songDhol Mhojea Bai, which was written for her, and had penned a tiatr entitledSounsaracho Gaddo in her later days. Upon her demise, the president of KalaMogi, Candolim, Tomazinho Cardozo said, “The tiatr stage has lost a very talentedactress whose contribution to the development of Konkani and the tiatr was immense.”
