In 1984, she was back to Punjab, this time in Chandigarh though. Her friends joked that she would probably form a bhangra band there as the dance was the only art form the city was known for. Chowdhury had to start from scratch. She made things more challenging for herself by deciding to do plays in Punjabi, despite not knowing the language well enough herself. “Punjabi was considered the language of truck drivers and dhabhawallas. Nobody wanted to touch you if you were working in Punjabi. But that was also the language of Sufiana and the Guru Granth Sahib,” she says.
The absence of theatre in Chandigarh worked in Chowdhury’s favour though. It helped her create her own style. Karanth had advised her that to be truly contemporary, she must know where she comes from and work with local artists. Since then, Chowdhury’s been on a relentless search for her roots. Through her plays, she has tried to revive the lost traditions of Punjab. Her first play in Chandigarh, based on Japanese director Kurosawa’s film Rashomon, used gatka, the martial arts of the Nihangs, the Sikh military order. Then, she used Dadhis or Sufi balladeers in a play on Heer Ranjha. Her plays unconsciously helped bind Hindus and Sikhs in the tumultuous year of 1984. “My works became a political statement of sorts as the bickering communities sat together and realised the many things they shared,”she recalls.

Chowdhury is penning a record of her eventful journey in theatre . She’s just completed her autobiography after having spent three years on it. The title’s not final. It may be called Behind The Curtains or Becoming So Many People, she tells us. “From my memory, I started making connections. The visual vocabulary came with my experiences and in the process, I discovered so many new facets,” she says. The show never stops.