But I Digress... (or better known as "My experiments with theater")

I had done a procenium theater course about a year back and these are my take aways on the same. We were guided though the process by Rajesh and Shibu. Rajesh is a garrulous, larger than life, rolly-poly person while Shibu seemed more like his alter ego with a more stern and taciturn outlook on life. The course was open to all and so we were a bunch of students, both degree and post grad, IT professionals, house wives; a cycling enthusiast and an economic major, both looking to find/explore what life has to offer.. quite an eclectic bunch to come together. People we were unlikely to come across in the normal routine of our lives. This is a small excerpt from that particular chapter of my life.

It's a rather long one, but hopefully engaging enough and wont put you to sleep :) :-P

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I thought of least 50 ways of starting this but I crumpled up each of them and threw it in the dust bin. Ok, fine, I back spaced them out!

Not my school, but close enough to the kind of antics
that I remember being presented

I thought of starting out with my initiation into theater: as audience. All those skits and plays, amateur, played out during all the school functions. Armed with nothing more than a crisp script, impeccable timing and loads of enthusiasm they laid out the foundation for my understanding of what good theater ought to be- engaging, entertaining and an experience. Most of the successes of these plays were based on the fact that cast was always quick on their feet when one of them forgot their dialogs (or for any other common dramatic mishaps) rather than any real discipline or dedication to the medium.

My first profesionally done play: Oh God!

Courtesy: evamentertainment.blogspot.in

Next, about when I really feel in love with theater. Chennai was an eye opener in many ways, one of which was the theater going culture. My first ever play by professionals was from Evam, then a fledgling enterprise. The differences brought about by attention to details, like lighting, costume, sound, was apparent. Saw a lot plays after that; some good, some bad and worst of all, some forgettable. But as part of the audience I never realized the amount of work that goes into making a production- Into creating the same experience for different audiences on different days in different cities. That realization came about when I was lucky enough to be part of Evam for a month or so. Helping them out with the mundane details like marketing and ticketing, which go a long way in creating the experience, gave me a glimpse of how a show is put up. About the expertise needed in planning out the lighting for the entire show or how integral sound is for creating the mood etc.

During my time with Evam, I came across a lot of actors and theater personalities. Fun as they were they seemed overly exaggerated . In the sense their actions seemed louder- they seem to laugh a little more, sulk a little more. Did gestures of the stage leave it’s impressions on their personality when off it too? But I digress.

Thought about the how I came to make my decision to join proscenium. I had seen the same mail last year but I wasn’t sure. Truth be told, the course seemed too expensive and I dint know how it would be a value addition for my course( unfortunately doing an MBA makes one think of Return on Investment for everything in life!!). But with college days running out on me, I realized this might be the last time I’ll get an opportunity coupled with time to indulge in it. It was an effort to break my own inhibitions of taking on more an one thing at a time.

Went and spoke with Rajesh. For one he seemed to reinforce the idea I had about theater people. Actually just watching him selling the idea to us was a show by itself. He told us how it could possibly change us, what a value addition it would be. Truth be told I dint buy it, but I decided to take the plunge anyways! So, last November, I let me splurge on myself.

Thankfully it was not an indulgence. It was every bit of a learning experience as any of my subjects I had for MBA. In fact for the amount of time I spent there, the growth, the realizations- invaluable. It was, after all, an investment! But I digress.

My sentiment exactly!

My first class. Early morning at 6.20am! I dint even realize life could start at such hours leave alone have classes. But I somehow managed to get there on time, though bleary eyed and still half asleep. Started it off with the exercises. Well, that got me going, loosening up the muscles. Seemed silly with the car noises and buzzing like bees. Rajesh explained that it was to open up our vocals and warm up.

But it triggered off something. Now I realize it opened up more than our vocals. For me, it opened up the possibility of being like a child. Being open to possibilities and pulling out the long forgotten talent that as kids we used for all those imaginary pirate raids and playing princesses. It was liberating and I think buzzing like the bee is my favorite part of the exercise.

Also like the fact that we were just thrown together, initially about 7 and later 12, and asked to collaborate to create something out of an almost diaphanous idea. I quite clearly remember being asked to create alphabets on our own using our bodies and then all of a sudden asked to form a word. We were given a couple of minutes and somehow we just pulled together. Put aside was the inhibitions we have when we interact with people we don’t know. I like the fact that Rajesh just pushed us, without seeming to, to let go and connect with people on the go. Now it makes so much sense, the final feedback after classes from each person. It was not just for him, but a chance for us to know each other, the thought processes than make each one of us.

I remember having only one class with the playback group. Again, pushing us out of our comfort zones. We had become comfortable with the people in the proscenium and so throw in about a new set of 15 or so to mix it up. Again it surprised me how remarkably easy it was to work with someone I dint know at all. Maybe it had something to do with the setting where people were in a place where we left our inhibitions by the lift door. But somehow that one interaction was enough to create a familiarity we usually reserve for people we see every day. It is too bad that we took up the baggage on our way out. World would be so much better if we just gave people a chance before we let first impressions prejudices color our interactions. But I digress.

Another class I have vivid memory about is the 'low class' and 'high class' concept. We were given roles which were differentiated by who is superior to whom. The 'low class' person would be bending and 'high class' person would tower over them. I remember it very clearly because I had a realization about myself that day. I was so intensely uncomfortable being one among the crowd, following the herd and obeying the unspoken rules. It made my skin itch, the bending down and sticking together. It gave me a lot to think about that day. Not just about myself, but how society works. Saw it in a new light, the interactions we have daily. How when we need help from the plumber or the taxi driver how the roles change, making them the ones in control of the situation. Awareness about the layers we assume or are blind to in life.

A class with Shibu about how we can modulate each sentence showed how limited my thinking can be. That there so many shades of meaning enclosed in a single line. Trying to find something more than what it means in the usual context was a tiring task. It felt a little odd at the time. But when I was working on my solo piece it all came back. How to change the texture of the piece so that you imbibe something new into it. And that’s the beauty of theater isn't it? Is that not why we go see the play rather than just read the script.

The same class we were asked to prepare our life time achievement speech as we would like it to be after 30 odd years or so. Yet another class I left with food for thought.

Unfortunately I missed the December classes thanks to exams. And miss the those morning classes I did. Missed getting up early enough to greet the morning sun, enjoying the morning chill invigorates your bones. Missed the warm up exercises and group interaction- because the morning classes used to make my day. Felt freer and seeing new colors and shades in what I had to learn that day.

Painting : Joy and Sorrow by Zhong Yang Hhuang
Poetry : Khalil Gibran

It was indeed a long December before I came back to the classes. The group had grown to 12 then. Some new faces, new people to learn from. And January was the beginning for a short pilgrimage- the solo piece. The moment I had heard we had to pick a piece which inspires or moves us I had my heart set on Khalil Gibran. I put in the least amount of thought into how I was supposed to present it. I’m glad about it now. Had I realized that we had to act this out on the stage I’m sure would have picked a far easier piece more, within the range of my modest talent. Then I would not have to struggle so much.Then I would not have learned as much. 

Sensual and diaphanous imagery, just like his poetry.
Painting by Khalil Gibran

Working with my solo piece was a struggle. There’s so much gravity in each of the words and there’s no characterization in the poem to mold into a person. But in a weird way it was also uplifting. The piece about joy and sorrow was one of my favorite out of his many poems. Memorizing the words was helping to reinforce them into my daily life. It helped to create a positive energy that I could channel into when I was having a bad day. Secondly, in trying to communicate the piece without being melodramatic, in trying to capture the essence was pushing my creativity and the acting itself was making me more aware of myself. Was growing and loving it!

Watching the others with their pieces also made me aware of the different perspective a single piece
can take up. Working with them on their pieces, just the random suggestions we would throw in helped to bond. It was so refreshing that we would suggest something and it was taken without the least amount of resentment. It also led to some interesting confessions and conversations later. I know I was always told never to judge a book by the cover but day in and day out I realised that I pass so many judgments even about people we know and care about.

One of my all time fave quotes!

So true. But I digress.. again!

Another journey was the group piece. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach is my favorite book ever since I laid my eyes on it about a decade back. That story, rather fable, has inspired me in so many ways and helped to overcome road blocks so many times. And for the life of me I could not see how it would be adapted to stage. I was extremely skeptical how we would be able to pull it off without proper stage setting, props, costumes, lighting. It seemed an impossible task, or least a highly improbable task to pull off especially given that we had just 10 minutes to perform it in. And that is how I learned what a difference the director could really make. Hats off to Rajesh because I can’t see any other way we could have pulled it off with all the conditions in place. But then again, I’m a mere mortal and not a director!

Courtesy :artandcreativity-maree.blogspot.com

Another thing I liked about the piece was the fact that the input was mostly from the group. It was
not like we were puppets and we were a big part of how the show was made. It was our song and our
words. I loved the way it was shaped and molded together to give it life.

The group piece was a crazy journey- The disappearance of the different people and taking over their part, the lack of practice, the fooling around- Made me realize how difficult it was to get up a show. That it needs everyone to pull their weight. And it was my first experience being part of a show leave lone doing a lead. It was curious sensation. Not only do I have to aware of my lines and role but of everyone else’s on stage. In fact I realized we need to memorize everyone else’s as well, know their cues, entrances and exits. At the same time we need to immerse ourselves in our characters as much as possible. Not to lose track of both was like having heightened senses; the level of self awareness as well as of our surroundings had to be so much more.

Then there was how we were asked to move under Shibu’s direction for the solo piece. Changing the shape of the piece entirely put all of us off. But the experiment worked. Somehow each of us had to find the comfort zone quickly and work into it. A bit of discipline and dedication was required if we were to pull it off and I think we did!

Getting into a seagull’s skin was another experience. I could understand some of the lure of the stage. To let go of my personality and take on another was more fun than I had figured. Unlike the  Prophet, here was a personality, though of flesh bone and feathers, who I could relate to. A day dreamer, a bit like me.. a perfectionist, unlike me.. trying to convince to let go and feeling rejected, a feeling that would have universal identification with.

And in doing so I realized why theater people seem to have personalities a bit larger than life. Simply because they are more aware of everything around them; more than we are. I guess they are used to taking in more and giving out more out of life than we are. They laugh a little harder and a little louder because they can see the different shades of irony that the theatrically inexperienced eyes of ours can’t see. But let me not digress from what I was trying to say.

What I wanted to talk about was the epiphany I had when I was trying to think about creating a flow of the final document. I was worried that I was moving along so many lines, changing direction and talking about random realizations. That there is no clear cut, straight line of thought. But then it hit me,why should I? Isn't that what theater is.. a digression from real life? When we sign the social  contract, whether as part of the audience or as the performer, are we not promising to move away the rules that hold the rest of our life together? 

To explore whatever it is that presented no matter how strange or alien the idea is; Being part of an experience, growing and learning, opening up ourselves for other people to put in their thoughts, voices; the realization and epiphanies are crucial for theater to survive.

Movies and TV leave little room for our imagination because they don’t ask us to believe the white ball in the ceiling to be the moon; they show us the moon. They don’t ask us to pay attention to details, they zoom in to the details, or out as in convenient. But theater asks everyone present to be fully engaged and fully present.

And now I’m sad that this little digression in my life has come to an end. Hopefully everything that I have learnt and realized will go with me for some more time. And when, one fine day, I realize that I have forgotten them then, perhaps, I’ll come back for another!

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Phil!

Losing that Disney feeling!

Looks like I'm not the only one out there
who thinks so. Courtsey : www.tumblr.com

 You know you have lost your childhood innocence entirely when you start asking 'What do you think this is, a Disney movie?' and what you are really saying is ,'That sort of optimism is crass and that'll never happen in real life' :-|

While I'm sure I still won't say no to Disneyland, Disney movies seemed to have lost it's magic for me quite a while back. I think I sat up and noticed it for 'Ratatouille'. There was/is/ever-will-be nothing cute about a rat in your kitchen. Unless he's Mickey Mouse. But even he's a mouse. Rats are a no-no, even if they are Disney endorsed! ARGHH. I lost my appetite for days thanks to my room mate happily saying 'ratatouille' every time she went in to cook in the kitchen! She was all for Disney rats! Bleh!

Another disappointing movie experience was 'Meet the Robinsons', and that's an understatement. I will not start on that because it's one of my pet peeves and I'll not know when to stop. Suffice to say that if someone forces me to pick between watching the movie again and sitting through 15 mins of nail scratching against the blackboard, the black board musical will have a better chance of having me in it's audience.

Tangled and Princess and the Frog, the last two animated offerings from Disney was not bad, but there was nothing truly memorable about either. Not like Toy Story 3 or How to train your Dragon, both of which were delightful to adults and kids alike. That's the sort of magic that Disney used to have.

Damn. I kinda lost control on the post. It was not really supposed to be taking an anti-Disney direction as much as loss of childhood innocence. I'm not even sure if it can be salvaged in that direction any more. :-/ Anyways, lemme try. 

One of the reason I cant relate to Disney movies anymore is 'black and white' nature of all the characters. They are branded 'good' or 'evil' from the start and they stay the same. No one ever really grows as a person. People don't get second chances if you fall in the ugly category, which is the same as evil in Disney's world. The old Disney movies from my childhood retain their charm more because of the happy memories associated with watching them.

[Warning: Spoiler Alert - Tangled]

The bad Mother? 

The Good Hero?

Least that ways I thought Tangled was refreshingly un-Disney. To be really fair, the witch might have locked Rapunzel up but never really ill-treated her. She did try her best to keep the girl happy in her tower. Getting Rapunzel all those expensive paints



 and letting the girl mess up the walls knowing that it'll kill the market value of the place if ever she has to sell it! I'm not sure her real royal parents would have let her do that!

And the hero of the movie though devilishly handsome was a relatively untrustworthy guy. He was a bandit and no Robin Hood at that either. He almost sold Rapunzel up the river to get out of trouble.

The menacing Crooks?

What is clear at the end is that Flynn ( the hero) is a good guy is because he chooses to not to give into his greed while the witch stops at nothing to satisfy her vanity. The fact that people become bad or good based on choices or actions they take is far more acceptable. And for once the bad girl was hot and there were ugly people who were good ( the crooks bar scene where all the really ugly people helped them hide and get away from the soldiers! You'll know what I'm talking about if you seen the movie!)

Of course one could argue that Jafar or Scar was evil because they were always power hungry. But we dont   really know why they became so. Maybe Scar was neglected coz he was a weaker cub? Maybe all work and no play made Jafar a cranky person. I mean even the most generous of viewers will not be under the impression that the Sultan was taking care of the country's admin stuff. C'mon! It was clearly Jafar who managed it. He probably felt a little under appreciated! There might be shades of grey we dint realise before. After all, Scar could have just killed the cub with one swipe. Surely it was always a possibility that the cub could come back to challenge him for the throne. So why did he let Simba go?

There are no easy answers in life and there are no people etched out in black and white. Sometimes we put people into boxes marked different colors because it's easier and not because it's true. And once we grow up and realise that, Disney movies are never the same again!

ps: Not a bad job, right.. I mean the salvaging bit, changing direction etc etc :-)

Rewind - Chapter 2

Wrote this two years back. World was so different those days it feels like it happened eons ago and I have aged terribly since then. Least that's how I've been feeling these days. Of course, it's more likely to be one of those quarter age crisis that seems to be all the trend these day with everyone :-) But what surprised me, very pleasantly I may add, was that I had already written this. I mean, that some ideas and thought have remained the same in me. Gives me a wee bit of hope that possibily, just that tiniest bit of possibility still exists, that I'm not entirely cynical :-)

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Courtesy:  http://3.bp.blogspot.com 

Finished 'ballet shoes'. It's actually a children's classic. Uncle G had got a book where they give the beggining of a whole sets of books and they stop right when the suspense peaks. But a lot of those books are, I think, british and it's hard to find those books. so I had read the initial chapters a long time back.. 


Even after I saw this book I dint read it for the longest time coz I figured I would have outgrown  the book and I dint want the magic to fade. It had happened before, where i re-read a book I had read when I was young except now I cant relate to it and all the magic I remember being associated with that book disappeared which was one of the saddest thing to have happened. That's a little bit of your childhood being killed then when that aura of magic melts away. So I dint read it till yesterday... and it's still a wonderful book. It dint disappoint one bit. It had the happy ending we expected but also a very different twist to it. I dont know how I would have felt about it if I was younger coz it would have been too bitter sweet... but now i realise that's how life is and i'm glad for that twist.

The story is about three lil orphans who gets adopted, or rather 'collected', by a eccentric old traveller.  The grls, pauline, petrova and posy, call themselves fossils since that's what the rest of the stuff collected by the old man is called and are given to the care of his grand neice and her maid. It's a lovely story how the grls find themselves, with pauline(eldest) an actress and posy(youngest) who pretty much breathes thru dance and petrova(middle and a russian by birth, the one I most identified with) with a knack for neither but loves cars and airplanes. I know you must be wondering why I would identify with petrova. With all three in a dance and drama academy, it's easy to imagine who would be a fish out of water. And right now it's just all too easy to identify with fishes out of water.

Anyways, it was lovely. With all the dance and drama and the grls in general. It's written in the most childlike way possible without sounding precocious. All of which is, honestly, rather surprising coming from a guy( Noel Streatfeild)

I swear, something it's seems almost surreal when a guy has such insight about being a grl. I still cant believe that John Mayer wrote that song all by himself, called 'Daughters'. He won the grammy for best lyrics and I could not have agreed more with a grammy award before.  It's just amazing how he could know without being a grl or even having a daughter. If he wasnt such a talented lyricist and songwriter I would have probably not liked him by now. Miss the John Mayer when he was new to the business... he was still cocky but it was not coz he thought himself as a great musician but more i felt coz an innate nature. Now that cockyness seems to come off more as arrogance than anything else, which is so sad coz i still love almost all his songs and wish i could look up to him! 


Listening to daughters now. I dont know for sure, but i do feel it;s true for almost all [women] out there. least both me and elu agreed with him cent percent. The first time i heard him sing I was in shock. more like, 'how could he know?'.  Well, still feel the same way. Doesnt seem to have the same effect on guys... dont know why?!


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In the mean time, you ever had a song a book which never loses it's magic no matter how many times you've gone back?

Some Tangy Moments!

Sometimes it’s not the most elaborate affairs that steal your senses, but the simplest. And sometimes all you need is the memory of a taste or a smell to take you away to a time, place, era. For me, it’s the tamarind.

Everyday, on the way to my office I pass this huge tamarind tree laden with  bunches of dusky dusty brown fruit just beyond my reach. Everyday I promise myself one of these days I’m going to bury my dignity and clamber away to the top and satisfy my cravings for the sticky ripe sour-sweet pulp inside. Just like a child. But adult dignity is hard to give up and yet another day passes with nothing more than faint aroma of nostalgia and disappointment.

I had no idea that it was preying on my mind so much till I came across Anita Nair’s Goodnight and God Bless. This is one lady who share so much in common with me that I sometimes wonder if she’s one of my siblings lost at the mela. Apart from a love of Blossoms, the books store in Church street and Chennai this lady has fond memories of the tamarind which is so close to my feelings that I could not help but wonder if she had dipped her pen into my brain before putting these lines on to paper:

Excerpt from Goodnight and God Bless – Seventeen:

“Ever since I was a little girl, I have had a great fondness for tamarind. I like the tree. The teardrop leaves and almost black branches. I like the notion that ghosts and ghouls liked to  inhabit it’s branches… I like the adage that likened a good prospective groom or bride to a well laden tamarind branch. Perhaps what I liked was the physical and metaphysical merged to create a universe and a sersatile one at that. But mostly what I love about the tamarind was the fruit itself.

A moment of heaven and happiness

I liked them green when the tartness made your teeth ache…I liked them semi ripe when each mouthful was a conundrum of: Was that sweet or was that sour? I liked them ripe when the flesh sticks to your fingers as your peel the dry shin off in bits and each mouthful is a taste of heaven…

When my cousins raided the store cupboard in my grandmother’s home for busicuits or jackfruit chips, I was content to dip my hand into the deep earthenware jar in which tamarind was strored. The glistening black, sundried tamarind speckled with rock salt crystals to this day evokes memories of still summer afternoons when the heat paused even the crows’ caw. Of childhood days when you though the world stood on it’s axis and would never move.And you ached to be a grown up…”

The clincher when I read this the first time was the raiding of the tamarind jar. In my gran’s house it was not an earthen ware, but a short, squat little glass jar with a red plastic cover. I could not help but grin from ear to ear thinking of the “raids” that was planned late in the afternoons by me, my sister and my cousin to get a ball of black ‘heaven’;  away under the very noses of the servants while my gran blissfully caught up with her beauty sleep ( which meant one less hawk eyed obstacle to cross!)

Another marvellous memory is going to my native place and clambering up the tree away from the prying eyes of adults and stuffing yourself till you are holding your stomach in agony. But that never stops you from returning the very next day to do the same because the temptation for biting into the soft brown skin is just too much.

But it’s not just the love of the fruit in it’s raw form. I love cooking with it as well. I love mixing it water to make the pulp for making rasam or better still, my new favorite, vatha kozhambu. I love how the tamarind melts to the soft brown almost muddy liquid which goes into making the best compliments for a plate of soft fluffy rice with a dollop of ghee on top.

Like I was saying, tamarind- the taste, texture,feel- is a chapter in nostagia and childhood memories.

So do you have a similar chapter in your life, triggered by a bite or smell of something disarmingly simple? If you do, do share your ‘imli’ stories!