Badal (Sudhindra) Sircar continues to be an influential figure in Bengali, even Indian, theatre five years after his passing. He was from the educated middle class–his father, Mahendra Lal Sircar taught history at Scottish Church College in Kolkata. The Sircars were Protestant Christians, as were most Bengali Hindu converts. He had a methodical mind and earned his living as a town planner, though the theatre bug had bitten him in childhood. What began as a pleasurable pastime seeped into