Thursday, January 25, 2007

Mediation

I meditated today.
Was a relief to discover I still can.
The mind has such energy, which we waste.
It's only when we collect ourselves we realise our power.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Jane, Goodall

Spoke to an eager audience @ the British Council, yesterday.

She started with a chimp noise, which was answered by an Indian tiger in the audience.

We learnt of how young Jane got into the chimp line-
I wanted to. I liked Tarzan, but not the wimpy Jane he fell for. When a vacancy for a secretarial position came up, I applied. So, I reached Africa.

We also saw her soft toy-
A chimp with a partly peeled banana. A 25 year old who went blind gave it to me, fo inspiration.

We heard of Dr. Jane-
Scientists did not look upon chimps as living. I knew less than nothing about taxonomy. i just felt the pain in a young gorilla's eyes, when he was seperated from his mother.

Kids-
I knew a gorilla who used a blade of grass as a tool. Another big, broad hottie tried to maul me. Well, we have a Tshirt now- I survived Friedo. As far as human kids go, Nat Geo sent a photographer- and we had a kid as well.

On saving the planet from the apes-
As humans are the fifth kind of apes, it is important that we be sensitive towards our big brothers. Kofi Annan made me a UN Ambassador of Peace so that I could spread the message of sweetness and light all round the globe in an apolitical way.

What more could we say to that irrefutable logic?
We gave her a standing ovation.

Lucky chimps.
Aside- The emcee called her John Goodall. Ah well, perhaps somewhere, there is one :)
Disclaimer- the above post is an impressionistic rendition of her keynote address, not a verbatim rendition of an original.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Yesterday, Tom Alter played Hussain.
Winner of the Golden Bear Award, better known in Indias as a beer hug, the play captured Hussainsagar lake's myriad moods to near perfecshun.
Brushing past him on stage were his paintings.
Honourable mention- the threatening mails which the director has been subjected to from the usual keepers of consciences unknown.
Song, dance, mads and her outlaws completed the rigmarole which wrung m.f. dry.
i'd missed this play in bbay- thx 2 wk- but as it is a skittish version of an original, it was not missed much.
it reminded me of a session i attended in science city- which had javed akhtar reading his poems out, then a bengali reading the translation, and finally, a painting on the emotion of that poem in particular.
Now, that can be called music.
Duty calls.
To work, to work:)

Saturday, January 13, 2007

When Push came to shovel

Sometimes, it's easy to leap. When inspiration strikes. Sittingon my seat M15, I had no idea that that night someone would take the plunge. When the actors' director called upon the audience to decide the course of the play, various suggestions came up on how to resolve the snafu.
One soul refused to let the rest of us in on his big idea. He jumped onstage and let in his co conspirators on his view.
Soon we saw his mind at work. He had the actors up a creek w/out their hemming n hawing paddles. Gradually, they bailed themselves out of the bind he had put them in.
We liked that ending best. I think, so must the cast. For i guess, actors too like being subjected to a show.
He should have been part of the curtain call.
Ah well. As he is an actor, I guess there is always another time and place for him to disappear to.
Thanks.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Yesterday's Plays

I think its time to revert to prose now. The danger with poets is that they often forget that Utopia is a fictional landscape. Terra firma is still my home sweet home.
However, old habits die really hard. Hence, my bus escapes, continue. Today I ended up in Qutub Minar. As I had gone there when I was in Class VI on a school trip, I did not remember much, as always.
So I explored the grounds, read the inscriptions, asked for my heart's desire from the Iron Pillar. It is fenced in now, so I could not hug it as I did the last time.
However, my wises remain the same. Ordinary ones. The best, nothing but the best, and always the best.
The inscription on the pillar extolled the Slave Dynasty- their serving appears to have borne fruit.
The deeds we do live on, fortunately. The sheer expanse of space and the way it has been altered to rival the beauties of nature left me awestruck, bushwacked and jaw dropping.
It must have been a treat to live their then, as masters of this particular universe.