By education, he is an economics graduate and a holder of an LLB degree. But by inclination, Bharat Dabholkar is a scriptwriter and director, with his creation Bottoms Up — you wonder whether to call it a play or a gag-bag of jokes, some rather stale — having the enviable — and surprising — record of being the longest-running English “play” in Mumbai.

“I don't know the first thing about theatre. When someone asks me to give a talk or take part in a debate on something like world theatre, I laugh in their faces. What do I know of theatre? I am an entertainer, that's all,” is what Dabholkar has to say for himself.

He stumbled upon the entertainment business purely by chance. “An accident,” he says. His dream was to become an IPS officer and join the police. He never planned to have anything to do with what he is doing now. But in the in-between period after filling the form and appearing for the exams, he had a back muscle accident, when he pulled a back muscle and so couldn't sit for his exams. While waiting for the next year, he got a job in client servicing in an agency. and given his sense of humour, it was not long before he moved into advertising.

Incidentally, he is the man who single-handedly, (and grown proud because of that) did those delicious one-liners for Amul butter.

His first foray into actual writing and directing came when he did a 10-minute skit for some advertising agency in Mumbai, “Till then English theatre was just direct adaptation of plays in English, with the actors performing very prim and proper. The first time, I experimented with that, letting the actors talk in regional accents. The skit was all about getting a telephone connection and a Marathi talked like a marathi and a Gujarati like a Gujarati, making the typical mistakes that they would make.”

Apparently people appreciated the novelty and this inspired him to start writing plays though he had to produce them himself as no one wanted to risk it.

The plays that he has written and directed, all 16 of them, Bharat explains, are “pure fun. Anyone looking for a deeper meaning or a message, is going to be disappointed. Only people who watch a play to relax, and for a good laugh would enjoy it.” He also calls his plays top secret. “I take up topics fresh in people's minds. The novelty of the plays is that even the 100th performance is not actually the 100th performance but the first. I delete some scenes and put in new ones for every performance. Though every single line of the play, even the mistakes, are rehearsed beforehand, we get together for it only a couple of hours before the performance. So it is new for the actors as well. It does not get jaded with time.”

Though his plays are doing well, he also runs an ad agency, Zen Communications. But in spite of all this, his one regret that he has never given an opportunity, is not having become an IAS or IPS officer.

He is nonconventional but his plays are tailor-made for the place and the time when they are being performed. In India, where he has performed just about everywhere, they have more local happenings while abroad, in Dubai or Hong Kong or Jakarta, they are toned down to suit the audience. He even gives his actors new lines in the interval.

“I love watching WWF (World Wrestling Federation) most on TV and that is one thing I never miss. Just because I am in advertising and directing I don't think I have to say I watch BBC News or carry around a thick volume on ‘latest trends in advertising.'” He believes what he is, and his one overriding ambition is going to bed each night happy. “Not rich or famous, I just want to be happy. If they too come in the process of being happy, fine. Else I can just as well be poor and happy.”

Dabholkar appears more boasting than shy when he confides, “I never act in my plays because I am a lousy actor. I acted in one Marathi serial and Hindi and they never took me in another. The same goes for Hindi and English serials. They only let me act in one. If someone comes and tells me I am a lousy actor, I tell them they are only confirming what I already know.”

He also lets on that the only one and the most embarrassing situation in his life was when he got into Elphinstone College and from among 140 girls and seven boys, he was the only one who didn't know a single sentence of English. All that he knows, he taught himself in college.

His group, he says, has been the stepping stone for the kinds of Shiamak Davar, Shweta Shetty, Suneeta Rao, Arshan Waarsi and Javed Jaffrey. “They have all moved on and I am still where I was. I don't know what a headache is, I have never had one day of stress in my life.”

He also has strong opinions about himself and his writing, doesn't care one hoot for critics and has never invited one to any of his plays. One thing he never allows himself is getting involved in religious matters and offending someone's feelings. Even if a total stranger comes and tells him he was offended by something he wrote, he would change it. “Creative licence doesn't mean hurting people's feelings. Likes and dislikes I am not worried about, but feelings and sentiments, yes.”

“I make fun of everything that moves. I don't have an image to protect and so I am not worried. If someone says something nasty and I have to reply, I will say something nastier in my play. I love reading Mad magazine and I admit it. So what?” he adds grinning. “I am safe, for no one else writes English plays in India.”

He goes off into a reminiscence: “There was this afternoon show for staffers of Larsen and Toubro going on when I heard the news that Gavaskar had hit his 30th century. The play also had a news bulletin.

So I sent in a guy with a flash announcing the news and added a joke, saying Pakistan had failed to appreciate Gavaskar's achievement. It had claimed that their Mr Khan had also scored 30 centuries. But on questioning it was found that it was not one Mr Khan with 30 centuries but 30 Mr Khans making one each.”