Dilli Ka Shayarana Andaaz

Truly a magical evening. The dramatised readings from a new novel had us riveted. An Urdu translation of The Last Mughal followed. It sounded much better than the original English version. 1852 Delhi was not much different from the Delhi we know and still love today. Sweltering summers, hookah wallahs who emerge in the evening..." Hum Dilli wale chatpate khane ke liye hi to yahan rehte hein."
Agreed.
Ghazals in a melodious voice followed- Yeh na thi hamari kismat by Ghalib, followed by Zafar, Daag et al.
I promptly bought the novel and am waiting for the Hindustani translation of The Last Mughal to be on sale.

Gorgeous Giraffes

The Giraffes at Select City Walk as part of Bon Jour India was wow. 18 feet tall pink giraffes, with one person being the back legs on stilts and one in the front. The front person manipulated the neck with strings. The clown said में दुनिया में सबसे महान हूँ with great glee. The opera singer sang Tintin style:) Fireworks, confetti, hoops of fire, cranes added to the carnival effect.

Media

Also watched Medea in Italian at the same venue yesterday. There was a three floor tall construction on stage, from where some of the actors declaimed their lines. Cloth fluttered from the sides to give a ship like effect. The shadow play on the back wall of the stage brought the tragedy to life, as the actor hung from her harness. Another death had the actor standing on a white sheet, the corners of which actors pulled while he moved. A smaller sheet of red on this sheet was pulled out gradually, so that he seemed to be drowning in a pool of blood. Indian music, dance added to the innovation of this production.

Kamaal

Watched Habib Tanvir's Kamdev Ka Apna, Basant Ritu Ka Sapna at the NSD Theatre Festival on Saturday. From the title to the script, Tanvir has done a marvellous job of adapting Shakespeare's A Midsumer Night's Dream in Hindi, with lines in verse. The actors of Pyramus and Thisbe spoke in Chattisgarhi but the music and dancing kept us riveted. The Wall stole the show, keeping us in splits.

Took a chance at the NSD theatre festival- Bharat Rang Mahotsav and got tickets for Johnny's Midnight Goggles on Sunday. Although the performance began half an hour late due to a technical snag, it was well executed. The story was a little thin. The celloist put up a one man show, singing too. In the open forum after the performance, a lady pointed out that the imaginary land connoting evil in the play, ended in stan. The actor promised to change it for the 9 o' clock show to something ending in shire or ham:)
Also managed a ticket for Naseeruddin Shah directed The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, which had a twist at the end.
Yesterday, I saw Strange Lines, which was...strange. The Indian spoke about India, the Swiss about Switzerland, while images danced on screens behind them.
Capped it off by walky talky from NSD to AIIMS. Google Maps says that's 9.3 km. Wouldn't have believed I could do that on such a cold night.

A Sing a poring we will go

I am so excited about attending Spike! Was shortlisting seminars, planning where to go in Singapore, what to buy. Santa Singh's definitely come early this year:) Am saving up money, although there isn't much time. Hope I can extend my stay. Looking forward to networking, experiencing Singapore by night, the awards, the workshops, the talks, the accents...

Baarish

Went for the play reading The Strange Case of Billy Biswas. The strength of the book lay in it's descriptions, which highlighted the lure of the jungle. From a dramatci perspective, it slowed down the action.

I liked The Blue Umbrella- the umbrella was indeed very beautiful. The tale was engaging too, not merely for children.

The muppets at the Monsoon Festival were also riveting.

I also enjoyed An Inconvenient Truth- although there were too many images of Al Gore for my liking. The screening was in a smaller room than the auditorium where The Blue Umbrella was shown, the people were less and so too hopefully were the carbon emissions:)

Check your carbon footprint on climatecrisis.net.

The music program in the evening was also very refreshing- with Suchet's shamanic drum and other previously unseen, unheard and unknown instruments.

Kartik Baul's music was lilting in parts.

We rounded off the evening with wine on the house, courtesy the American centre:)

Preview

Had watched class of 84 a while ago. Very talk talk play...not too much action. Not sure how the plays this week by the same director- Rahul da Cunha will be...Chaos Theory & Pune Highway. The subjects he deals with are interesting and connect with the audience- friendship, love comedy...but wordplay alone does not a play make.

But he did do the wonderful I'm not Baji Rao...

TMS

The third edition of The Medicine Show was less rousing than the previous ones. The usual acts could not leverage the elemnt of surprise- the singers & the dancers...even the theatre practioners decided to sing this time.

The wedding band was a suprise touch--the sight of them solemnly playing Muqabla had many of us cracking up.

The staged stand up comedy act did have a twist in its tail...but that was it's only merit.

It may be tough to put up a good show month after month--perhaps a bimonthly would generate more crowds & quality acts.

The venue, too, was not apt...one is tired of sitting on carpets, floors and what have yous for a view of the performances.

Sax on toast

Attended a very refreshing concert- piano & saxophone by two Canandian women on Canada Day at the IIC yesterday. Pink Panther as an encore was delightful:)

O.M.O.

Feel so proud & independent to have my own place- master of all I survey--although I have broken several banks to get & set up my place:)
Enjoyed the first edition of The Medicine Show at TLR more than the second one- although this was a welcome celebration after completing the bulk of my shifting. I liked I f$%#ing love you--didn't know the two could sing too:)

Sunday Funday

Had a good time at The Medicine Show, The Living Room. I specially liked the three women singers and their funny lyrics-
"While I'm waiting
for the man I'm dating
and he's stuck in a traffic jam
& so am I...
I'm putting more makeup to pass the time...
Leave your car I say...
He says Darling I can;t, it's the latest model,
which is not what you are:)"

Not sure if these were the exact lyrics.

Up some dates

Hungarian music tap tap

Magic of Broadway rap

Diwali Mela melees

Play by Israelis

Columbian concert calls

If rice permits, to halls.

The New Century & the Dark Side of Globalization

Attended the 2nd Annual Penguin Lecture. This time the speaker was Lord Patten. As he too spoke on globalization, I had trouble keeping his and Friedman's lecture of last year straight. His wit kept us in splits throughout. The cocktails at the British Council rounded off a very pleasant evening.

Yesterdemain

Watched a contemporary dance performance by Rashid Ansari yesterday. I liked the Japanese sword fighting sequence too. I was pleasantly surprised to see my College Math teacher Nandita Narain singing. She did some bird whistles too. Did sound like the earth bursting in spring- they were some instruments I had not heard earlier.

My heart is yours

What good is advice

I have drunk poison

What good is sugar

They say tie his feet up

What good is that

When it is my heart that's crazy?

'Tis true, 'tis pity. 'Tis pity, 'tis true.

Space, the final frontier

Astropohotography- uniting art and science- was the subject yesterday evening. Shutter speed, length of time the aperture is open and exposure are the parameters one can play with when one wants to shoot celestial bodies. A tripod with something to keep the shutter open is required, as one may need to keep the shutter open for 6 hours- stars move slowly across the sky.

The stars trails is visible as a curve. The partial solar eclipse at sunrise in Delhi 2007, with joggers in the foregound, had people thinking that the ones in the photo were running from the eclipse:)

Other out of the box ideas were leaving the parking lights on to get a reddish shade to a monument in the foregound of another photo of a star.

22 July 2009 ( maybe June) is when a total solar eclipse will happen in India. in Delhi, 85% of the sun will be covered. Patna, Vishakapatnam etc will witness a total eclipse of the heart.

Morning Walk

Sultanghari, where Iltutmish built a tomb for his son, was very majestic. Recycled stones with rough carvings of feet were the discovery of the day. Also, a well dating from 1418 & an inscription mentioning it's being built.

Bahadur Shah Zafar hunted hares here- the villagers did not let him hunt nilgai and later even deer. He would come from his palace in Mehrauli. Looks like Delhi's farmhouse custom is ancient:)

Indian Art Summit 2008

The Indian Art Summit of Modern & Contemporary Art at Pragati Maidan was a slight letdown in terms of content. I liked Paresh Maity's giant sculptures. Overall, Indian artists still seem to be searching for apt idioms. I'm tired of looking at goddesses superimposed on female figures, skeletal men and psychedelic colours.

De ja voo

Enjoyed myself as usual at Caferati.

Also, giving gyan to someone who's in the same boat as i was a couple of years ago.

Whopper tellers

The Storytelling workshop was supercalifragilisticexpialidocius fun. Puppets, dancers, actors, pint sized story tellers made for a very entertaining Saturday morning.