Twelve Angry Jurors

Watched a play after a year. Twelve Angry Jurors doesn't roll as easily off the tongue as Twelve Angry Men, the original play, but it can accommodate women. Watching it as an adult, I absorbed it more than the last time round, as a child. I think I watched the Hindi film Ek Ruka Hua Faisla.

It reminded me of corporates today. How few times we have the courage to say no. But when we do and others come around to our point of view, how satisfying it is to know we've stuck to our guns and were right.

A play is like watching a match live. You can watch it on TV, just like you can watch a movie based on a play, but it's not the same. Knowing that you can reach out and touch the actors, that's it's unfolding in front of you makes you feel part of the action more than if you were chomping on popcorn in the hall.

The production quality was good. There was a screen in the backdrop, where the visuals changed according to the story. Initially I revolted against it- am not a fan of mixing media. They used it to show a scene where a few characters were talking in the loo.

Perhaps showing it live would have taken too much time- changing the set. We are called upon to exercise our imagination less these days. Still, the set looked sophisticated. I was beginning to get reconciled to the astronomical sum we had paid for tickets.

The acting was by and large good. Rajit Kapur was powerful, as was his stocky opponent. A couple of characters had small roles, so couldn't judge their acting. It was interesting to see the shift in power- after the interval the majority became the minority.

The play was also adapted to India, with some Hinglish and Indian references to cricket matches and so on. That too helped make the play feel more real and contemporary.

It was presented by Adyam of Aditya Birla- great initiative. Here's to Rage and Nadir Khan coming out with more such polished productions- look forward to lesser known scripts being staged next time.

Jaipur Literature Festival 2013

The litfest was a wit feast. Not bad looking either, with blue balloons, orange decorations, colorful shamianas. Somak Ghoshal's article in Mint helped me figure who I should be watching out for and they did not disappoint.

I also looked at speaker profiles for more hints. This post is a collection of my tweets and fellow tweeters helped me keep track of the sessions where I couldn't be as I didn't have a clone or two. Day 1 began with rushing at 9 AM to the venue and the reward was no line for the pass :)

After suffering through the inevitable opening speeches by everyone and their dogs I made a beeline for the Google Mughal tent where there was a session on The Global Shakespeare. Elif Batuman spoke about how Turkish women put up a production of Hamlet, calling it Hamid!

Tim Supple was also good, pointing out how Indian local theatre forms emphasise more on the ancient. In the West the tendency is more to make fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream punks. So Shakespeare's ancient parts blend well with Indian theatre traditions. Then I hopped over to the Zoe Heller session where the question answer session had begun.

After some idlis from Garden Cafe to soothe a tummy that had gotten up early, I was ready for more fuel for thought. The afternoon session on The Art of The Short Story saw Yiyun Li make an interesting point- we always talk about show not tell, but we are storytellers...Very true. Storytelling involves craft, otherwise it would be closer to journalism, I guess.

Poet Simon Armitage's session was ribtickling. His reading of You're Beautiful was... beautiful and hilarious. His deadpan one liners kept us in splits. Writing a novel is too much like a job, so I'm going to stick to poetry, he said. I agree. Poetry is all about style, so you need to develop your own voice, he also said. I agree with that too.

Next up was funny man Howard Jacobson in a session on The Novel of The Future. The standard themes began to emerge- will the digital form kill the novel?

I gave the first session on Day 2 a miss out of consideration for my ears. Laughing, Weeping, Writing saw a lot of laughing certainly. I had wanted to attend a Gary Shteyngart session after seeing his antics on Twitter and he did not disappoint. "I tell my story to a shrink and if he laughs I know I've got a good one," has got to be one of the immortal quips of the festival.

Deborah Moggach pointed out that a novel is a noun, a film a verb- a succint way of getting the difference between the two across. Manu Joseph read a funny excerpt from his novel, which ended with a school kid writing Sita is the opposite of Ram :)

A quick shopping trip to nearby Bapubazar for Jaipuri bedcovers to satisfy my friends visiting from Delhi and a bite at Anokhi- we were back. Shabana Azmi's session was packed, as expected so entry had stopped. I did stumble on a book launch by her, Javed Akhtar and Prasoon Joshi after that, which led me to discover Amit Khanna's Anant Raag, which seems promising poetry.

Ariel Dorfman and Santiago Roncagliolo put up a rollicking session on Latin America. Very magic realist. How to Read Donald Duck by Dorfman is now on my reading list.

The Jewish Novel with my favorites Gary Shteyngart and Howard Jacobson followed. Their banter had us rolling in the aisles. Howard Jacobson pointed out that you can only be funny if your life is tragic, hinting at schadenfreude, to my mind.

My stomach finally collapsed so I had to give Day 3 a miss. I tried to catch the webcast but the slow net at home and the iffy webcast ensured that I depended on twitter.

I only went for the Michael Sandel session on Day 4. Is sexual violence linked to sectarian violence? A thought provoking question, but there were no easy answers from the audience.

So I was hungry for thought bytes on the last day, after my near two day drought. Howard Jacobson was funny as usual. The line for getting books signed by him was by now a mile long- guess people who heard him on the first few days were impatient for a keepsake.

Wade Davis then speculated on whether Mallory did reach the summit of Everest. He didn't think so, as Mallory didn't carry the required equipment. A long shot- if snow had helped create a slope on the second ridge he could have climbed the mountain...

Sebastian Faulks quipped that journalists were taxonomists, always wanted to pigeonhole everything...not far wrong, mesays. He felt that highlight one man's reaction to a woman walking in a room would be more impactful than just saying the room took a collective breath when she walked in. Makes sense. His inspiration was France, not England. Such a different culture, just a few miles away. It's interesting how the exotic can inspire you to write, although many say one should write on what one knows. Supriya Nair's mouthwatering boots set off Sebastian Faulks's suit nicely, leading me to tweet What suits are to men, boots are to women :)

Volunteers bagged front row seats for Sharmila Tagore for the closing debate. After the lengthy thank you speech, there was a cursory debate. Nathulal's deafening drum rolls would drown out loquacious speakers promptly.

Frank Savage was so scared of overshooting his four minutes he ended early. Michael Sandel spoke well, saying that altruism was like a muscle, which would strengthen with use.

These five days were the only Test match I've attended. I hope to be back next year from January 17-20, when Margaret Atwood, Amartya Sen, Yaan Martell, Mark Haddon, Umberto Eco and other yummy writers will be here. Otherwise, I'll just catch the videos, I guess. But Walter Benjamin's Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction applies to litfests too- the pain of attending the live session makes it seem worth it :)

So am glad to have discovered some fine new writers and while I get around to reading their work, some of them are on twitter..@bananakarenina's intriguing handle (Elif) lived up to her promise in the sessions. When she tweeted that she would miss India, I replied that we'd miss her too. She's favorited my tweet, so I think visiting writers have fallen in love with Jaipur and the other way round : )

What's his face- Mark Zuckerberg a.k.a Frankenstein

After watching The Social Network, I wanted to know more about Mark Zuckerberg. I went to Wikipedia, which factually more or less confirmed what was mentioned in the movie. I watched an interview of his on YouTube, in which he came across as very different from his movie persona.

As I was multi-tasking while listening to the interview, I stopped paying attention to what Mark Zuckerberg was saying after a while. A comment by the interviewer stayed with me though. He said that Facebook seemed to enroach on our privacy as a default, only stepping back and raising its hands when it was obvious that it had gone too far.

That seemed to check out with the movie's portrayal of Facebook's founder too. Sometimes I think that privacy on Facebook is oxymoronic. If we wanted privacy, we wouldn't be on Facebook. I think Facebook is breaking new ground because it is media that is personal and social. Unlike books, radio, TV, internet.

Maybe that's why we spend more time on it. It's our filter for other media. Will the collective consciousness improve? Will we know more, read better articles, watch more educational videos as they are shared by our more learned friends?

Or will we click on titillating links, treat Facebook like our personal idiot box? Will there be a mass dumbing down? We still don't know what Facebook is, can, or will be. It evolves constantly, and we evolve with it.

It is truly two way media. Often we find it's intuitive, easier to use. Another part of Mark Zuckerberg's interview stayed with me. This 27 year old asked high school kids what email they used.

They thought email's slow. I too find it cumbersome nowadays to type out a subject line and text. It's just easier to keep others in the loop by writing on one friend's wall on Facebook. I also watched some hilarious videos of Facebook in the offline world. People poking each other actually, writing on wall, and shouting out comments.

We write about the real world online. It's still funny to imagine the virtual world offline. Maybe one day it will be the other way round.

Mirchians

Mirch was watchable. A hazard of short stories is that they are episodic, specially when they are one after the other. Identification with a character for a sustained period of time becomes difficult. The stories from Panchatantra and Decameron were folk tale like in nature. Would be tough to incorporate the superstitious attitudes the twists in them hinged on, in modern stories. Unless, of course, magic realism was used. The third story's denouement seemed a little weak logically. I liked the last story's comic elements which Boman Irani personified. Women viewers would naturally like the agency taken by the protagonists in all the stories. They all revolved around verbal dexterity rather than brute strength, thereby confirming another stereotype. Still, even considered as tales by themselves, they were fun. That's what going to the movies is about at the end of the day.

Behind every great love story, is a great lie

I quite liked LSD- very different. It has the Blair Witch home video feel. One character was Delhi to the core. The three stories were also interwoven well. The music was great. The hattrick!

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.

Up in the air

I quite liked the movie, with it's wit, dark humour and action. Realistic, relatable and different.

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.

Period Piece

I liked Sherlock Holmes, although it was more a Guy Ritchie version of Holmes than a Doyle version. Was surprised to see how much I've forgotten about the stories. Ritchie's got London of that time to a T. The supernatural elements reminded me of Doyle's interest in the occult. Holmes and Watson are action heroes, twisting in the superbly weird convolutions of plot Ritchie's known for. The cinematography stayed in my head long after the credits ( written beautifully in parchment with sketches) had rolled.

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.

Inglourious Basterds

I really liked the film. The subtle menace of the lead villain, the build up by the New York Times Review, the unique experience of watching a film by a living legend on the big screen, in real time. The cinematography was excellent, the circling shots, the music, but I thought it could have been better edited. It was fun giving Hitler what he should have got.

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:)

Western classical

The music program at IHC yesterday was very refreshing for the soul. Also a refresher with French and Italian guessing. Didn't have the same impact in English:)Worth the long ride.

I

Caferati's Godawful Poetry Fotnight- a baker's dozen of days- begins today.

Well, Godawful poetry to me would mean forced rhymes, trite emotions and just generally...bleh.

http://caferati.blogspot.com/2009/08/son-of-godawful-poetry-fortnight-19th.html#3758941225409206053



Godawful Poetry Fornight has begun
Time to let blessedly go, tum tum.

Kaminey liked, like called to like
Earfuls the next day, let's strike.

Boredom wars with logic here
How to writers keep me there.

Maids and cooks made havoc
Gym gayi, cleaned bugs adhoc.

The weekend that was

Liked Curious Case of Benjamin Button and also Love Aajkal. Good to see a hindi movie trying to be more realistic. The contrast seemed sharper when compared to the 60s typically filmi love story. Only when the movie is over do you realise how wafer thin the storyline was.

Also read the Science of Influence via torrent- good read; a change in environment leads to a change in behaviour...very true.

Saturday night bacardi fun...I do still have a life:)Homedulgence.

Shopped more...USI always has pickable stuff.

The Road Behind, Now, Ahead

Am reading the Road Less Travelled & Beyond by M.Scott Peck. Says a lot of things which make sense, although he focusses too much on The Man Above for my taste.

The need to think, is something which most people neglect to simplify their lives. The capacity to tolerate uncertainty is also a skill which may come with time.

The willingness to welcome pain as an opportunity to grow emotionally is also something we shirk. What's the point of studying something we are good at? True. For a change, yes.

More as I continue reading it.

Other gems I picked up at Landmark- Adland; Truth, Lies & Advertising; Crowdsourcing.

Courtesy a small discount voucher from Citi & my points.

Some consolation for a wasted trip to Gurgaon on Saturday- the meeting scheduled there ended up being in Delhi.

Habitat movie

To kill a mockingbird- the movie- is much tighter than the book. The book had it's own charm, a bildungsroman of Scout. Gregory Peck as the restrained Atticus Finch stole the show. He picked up an Oscar for this role. Stein auditorium was as packed as when Harry Potter 6 was premiered.

The world today

Reading Naomi Klein is akin to one's fasciantion with the macabre...it is intensely depressing but still one is compelled to read on...the horror, the horror of Chile, Argentina, Britain, Russia, Iraq, South Africa...

One wonders why this is not covered in the general press...I am once more reminded of how American our view of the world is...reading about countries whose culture we know little about, only sharpens the blurry picture they have in our mind; to some extent.

Money truly governs the impression you create.