Early career and Anamika years Jalan started his career as a lawyer and subsequently headed a legal firm in Kolkata, and at the same time also worked both as a theatre actor and director. He started his acting career with play
Naya Samaj in 1949, followed by
Samasya (1951) directed by Tarun Roy in 1951. He directed his play
Ek Thi Rajkumari (1953), a children's play, written by Roy, in Hindi. This was followed by
Konark (1954) by
Jagdish Chandra Mathur and
Chandragupta (1955) by Seth Govind Das. He continued to act in most of his plays, sometimes playing the lead and even into his later years. He was the first theatre director to recognise the plays of
Mohan Rakesh, when he staged his
Ashadh Ka Ek Din (One Day in Ashadh) in 1960, He subsequently staged
Lehron Ke Rajhans (Swans of the Waves) in 1966 and
Adhe Adhure (Halfway House) (1970), where he and his wife Chetna played the leads. His Hindi productions captured the magical realism of Bengali playwright
Badal Sircar's
Evam Indrajit (1968),
Pagla Ghora (Mad Horse) in 1971 in brought Sircar to national limelight. He was equally adept in handling harsh realism of Marathi playwright
Vijay Tendulkar's
Sakhārām Binder and
Khamosh Adalat Jari Hai (Hindi version of
Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe),
Panchi Aise Aate Hain (Thus Arrive the Birds) from his
Ashi Pakhare Yeti in Marathi in 1971,
Gidhade (The Vultures) in 1973 and
Kanyadan (1987). and in time it became one of the important productive playwright-director relationship in Indian theatre. While working on
Evam Indrajit he extensively collaborated with Sircar. He co-founded theatre group
Anamika in 1955 with
Pratibha Agrawal, a Hindi writer and a great granddaughter of
Bhartendu Harishchandra, which played a pioneering role in the revival of Hindi theatre. and remained with it till 1972, and during this period it created a large audience for Hindi theatre in Bengali speaking Kolkata. At the time,
Usha Ganguly of
Rangakarmee' was only other director, to be actively involved in Hindi theatre in the city, just as
Satyadev Dubey was in Bombay. Subsequently, along with his wife Chetana Jalan, the well-known Kathak dancer and stage actress, and actor
Kulbhushan Kharbanda, he left Anamika in 1971 and established
Padatik (literally foot-soldier) theatre group in 1972, of which he was the founding director. This gave him a chance to venture into bolder themes, like those in Vijay Tendukar's plays like
Gidhade (The Vultures) (1973) and
Sakharam Binder (1979), and
Mahashweta Devi's
Hazar Chaurasi Ki Ma (Mother of 1084) (1978), with his new venture he stepped beyond Indianism, modernism, or experimentalism. Padatik in the coming years, started inviting outside directors like, Ranjit Kapoor, Satyadev Dubey, Bennevitz, Rajinder Nath, and Rodney Marriot, and soon the group was performing three productions in a year. In time, dramatic speech and theatricality became the hallmark of Padatik plays and most notably Badal Sircar's
Evam Indrajit (And Indrajit) remembered for its stylised movement and speech. Along with his wife he founded Padatik dance school in Kolkata, for classical as well as contemporary dance. He also remained associated with
Natya Shodh Sasthan Kolkata, an archive of Indian theatre for many years. Long before trend government funded festivals started, he organised the first performing arts festival, a "Chhau Festival" bringing together three forms of
Chhau dance, i.e. Seraikella,
Mayurbanj, Purulia, together on one platform, in March 1977 in Kolkata.
Padatik also organised workshops on dance, lec-dems of Gurus of Indian dance including Kelucharan Mohapatra, Vempati Chinna Satyam, Guru Bipin Singh, Birju Maharaj, apart from organising three major international theatre, dance, martial arts conferences in which theatre personalities like
Peter Brook,
Eugenio Barba,
Tadashi Suzuki,
Richard Schechner,
Anna Halprin and leading theatre directors and actors from all over India, participated. He also acted in Bengali productions, like
Tughlaq (1972), a Bengali version of
Girish Karnad's play performed by Padatik under his own direction, for Pashchimbanga Natya Unnayan Samity, which featured stage actors, like
Sombhu Mitra, Debabrata Dutta and
Rudraprasad Sengupta. He is credited for not only reviving Hindi theatre in Kolkata, but also by performing plays by Bengali playwrights like
Badal Sircar's
Paagla Ghoda and
Evam Indrajit in Hindi, bridging the gap between North Indian and Bengali theatre. He brought
Kalidasa`s Sanskrit play
Abhijñānaśākuntalam as
Sakuntala to stage in 1980 with lyrical dance movements of
Odissi, and
G. P. Deshpande`s politically charged Marathi-play
Uddhwasta Dharmashala (A Man in Dark Times) in 1982. He translated plays by
Henrik Ibsen like
Janta ka Shatru (
An Enemy of the People) in 1959,
Brecht,
Raja Lear from
Shakespeare's
King Lear, and
Moliere's
The Bourgeois Gentleman and
The School for Wives. He adapted
Rabindranath Tagore,
Ghare Baire (Home and Outside) in 1961, and dramatised
Mahashweta Devi's classic novel
Hazar Churashir Ma (Mother of 1084) as
Hazar Chaurasi Ki Ma in 1978. He later worked as the vice-chairman of the
Sangeet Natak Akademi from 1999 to 2004., In 2005, he directed first and only film
Eashwar Mime Co., an adaptation of
Dibyendu Palit's story,
Mukhabhinoy, by Vijay Tendulkar. The film is story of a travelling mime company selling products and a writer's views upon its journey, it has two lead
Ashish Vidyarthi playing the role mime company's owner while
Pawan Malhotra did the role of the writer. Though it didn't get commercial released during his lifetime, it was screened at
Durban International Film Festival, the
3 Continents Festival and the
Kolkata Film Festival. Nearly 42 years after he first presented Mohan Rakesh's
Lehron Ke Rajhans, he presented a new version, at the
Bharat Rang Mahotsav of the National School of Drama in 2009, to critical acclaim. The brochure of play reproduced two letters, one written by Jalan asking the playwright for clarifications and guidelines, and in the second the reply of Rakesh two months later, in fact after their discussions he rewrote third act. He died after a long illness at Kolkata on 24 May 2010, survived by his wife and six children. ==Legacy==