The Godfather - three times over!

At last I have done it. When I was younger, I had watched The Godfather in bits and pieces, never quite understanding the greatness in the movie where gunshots were fired every two minutes. I now sat through the three movies - I, II and III and I cannot describe the aftereffects that the magic has wrought on me. I am glad there was a Mario Puzo, a Coppola, Marlon Brando, is an Al Pacino, Robert de Niro and Andy Garcia. What movies and how beautifully brought to life from the written word! The actors, the music, the setting and the mood, everything worked to perfection. A must watch for everyone.

The Goddess came and went...

After four years, it was Durga Puja time in Delhi once again. Whatever I do, I just cannot ignore these five days of festivity and I think a owe a large part of it to meeting friends, listening to the drummers whip up the electric atmosphere, aroti of the goddess, pushpanjali with the mantras being chanted, the Bhog for three days, etc, etc.

A Return of Sorts

How are you supposed to feel when you return to a place which was your home for four years? For me it was a fusing of the past and the present. While moving around Kolkata, dealing with official work, I always had an urge to return to the place I lived in. It came quite naturally. The feeling is really strange, I can tell you that. Since I went back just a month and a half after leaving the city, it felt like I had never left. Everything was the same. Only my home had been displaced. Staying with my parents, meeting my sisters and one-year- old nephew gave me quite a high. I chatted with quite a few of my friends and it was like any other day. So what am I supposed to feel, sad or happy? Well, for my sanity I choose to be happy, and now when I am back in the capital I am still euphoric. I just need to make sure I return often to stay euphoric.

A New Place, A New Pace

Before leaving Kolkata, I had no time to mope since I had to get my household into boxes and finish off all working ties with the city. After I left Kolkata, the days went past in a blur. I unpacked my household and set up my house once again in New Delhi. I was here for six years before I left for Kolkata, but the four years in Calcutta were unforgettable. There are soooo many good things about that place if we overlook the traffic snarls and the bandhs. But now that I am set to become a Dilliwali, I'm sure I'll fall in love all over again with this huge, huge city. And yes, I'm blogging after quite some time. Now that I've settled, I'm back.

Snow White and the Saline Curse

A play staged by The Creative Arts at the Max Muller Bhavan in Kolkata, Snow White and the Saline Curse could be the first to fuse enchantment with pressing environmental issues. Snow White and the seven dwarfs are now in the Sunderbans. The inhabitants grapple with the problem of rising salinity of the waters there and the loss of vegetation. The animals and the villagers including the village gypsy woman, woodcutters, honey collectors, the prince and the wicked queen make for a colourful play. Quite a task getting children from the age group 4 to 15 years to take acting seriously, but it was done and well. The live music was an added bonus and put life to the show. The script was by Sangeeta Bapuli and direction by Ramanjit Kaur.

Ranan’s staging of Equus

Peter Shaffer’s dark and brutal play Equus was staged by the theatre group Ranan at Gyan Manch. I am glad I did not give this a miss. The rave reviews Equus received in London where the central character was played by Daniel Radcliff had me fascinated.
Ranan has presented the play a little differently in its visual aspect, experimenting with classical dance making it all the more intriguing.
Alan Strang, the 17-year-old boy, torn between his passion, his beliefs, family pressure and the adolescent conflict held his place wonderfully. The psychiatrist had the toughest role, I believe. She was a bundle of conflicts herself, coming to realize by the end of the play, the futility of categorization of normalcy from the societal view point and asks herself, What dark is this?
It was evident that besides two of the characters, the others were not comfortable with English and this does jar at times. Nevertheless, the dances, the costumes and the lights made up for it. Vikram Iyengar has really done a commendable job.

Armenian Genocide

On April 24, I was given to recite a poem for stage, and this is a first for me. The occasion – The Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide at Gorky Sadan. I recited the English translation of Siamanto’s poem, The Dance. This was the first time I had any association with the Armenians, though I have always been curious about the church and the school. My friend Kamal teaches at the Armenian school on Mirza Ghalib Street, Kolkata, and it is she who put in my name for this piece. Two pretty students enacted the poem as I recited it from the wings of the stage. The poem depicts a ghastly scene during the genocide in 1915 where 20 young brides are beaten up, made to dance and then burnt to death, all this witnessed by a woman looking through a window. Thanks to Father Oshagan Gulgulian for giving me an idea about how the poem needed to be emoted. To this day, Armenian all over the world await justice hoping Turkey will apologize for the genocide of 1915.