Vijay Tendulkar transcended the cultural boundaries of Maharashtra. There is no other Marathi literary icon today who is not only well known all over India, but is also respected among the elite. There is an establishment elite and an equally prestigious anti-establishment elite. Tendulkar moved from one to the other, with no one questioning his right to do so. But his heart was on the anti-establishment side. That showed in his themes as well as the way he crafted and presented his plays.

He was fastidious about the directorial details. He wanted to achieve a certain effect and he knew that it could not be achieved without the correct composition of lights and music, sets and costumes. He also wrote detailed notes on the script itself, on the movements and moods of the actors. Often the directors had to merely follow the script and those notes.

His modern themes and perfectionist approach impressed the metropolitan elite. In his famous and highly controversial play, Gidhare (The Vultures) Tendulkar explores the human relationships within a family, which turn explosive and violent to the extent that the father, brother, sister and the rest get into a murderous mood over a question of property. He wrote the play in 1972, when land prices were not skyrocketing like today and family incomes were not very high.

Yet the conflicts within families were turning vicious. Joint families were splitting up but nuclear families were not fully evolved. Property distribution, in a stagnant economy with low incomes, was turning hideous. Conventional playwrights would not dare to take up such themes. Romanticised and moralistic images of the family determined the predominant content of theatre. Tendulkar dared to expose the brutal reality with equally brutal language. That shocked audiences. There were protests and demands to ban the play. A young woman, forcibly aborting with blood oozing out on her saree, was too outrageous an image to be shown on the stage.

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