When a book chooses you...

Watching a movie (The Hurricane?) one sentence held my attention. One guy tells the other (it goes something like this), 'you know the funny thing about books is when you lay your hands on a book, most often it's the book that chooses you'. For me, that was stunnning. It was something I had known a long time ago!

I remembered my days as a member of the British Library. More than 13 years ago. I knew there would be a special book for me, waiting in one of those racks. I used to do something interesting. I would let my hand run over all the books as I walked down the aisle. And, at one point I would stop, because I knew or I rather instinctively felt that I had to pick up 'this' book. I would pick it up and when I read the summary on the back flap, everytime it would be an interesting storyline. Everytime, this worked for me! I can vouch for it.

That is the only way I could find a book to read. That is the only way I have read some of the most interesting books that I would have missed otherwise.

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I, an actor

15 years ago (as a gawky teenager), when I sat open-mouthed watching a theatre rehearsal for the first time, the love was spontaneous and heart-felt. Today, hundreds of plays later, the relationship has only got richer.

But over the years I moved away from my first reason for joining the theatre - acting. From hitting the limelight, I learnt to help others experience the limelight. That journey was and continues to be equally if not more exciting. Training a bunch of newcomers and helping them develop the nuances of expressions and exploring and developing new vocabularies of emotions and body positions was simply a fantastic experience.

This year after a 7 year hiatus from acting, I donned the grease paint once again. In our latest production Alexander, which was staged on 4th July I became Leonnidas - a teacher.

And when I acted,
I made love
to the lights
the shadows
the murmur of the audience...
I swung on a swing of a million emotions
and I hid behind a veil of tears
And I acted, once again...

Devashola - Abode of the Gods

With my all-the-time-getting-better half (Shri), I went to the Devashola tea estate in Coonoor for a short holiday. A place that one can conjure only in the imagination. Coonoor's pleasant weather greeted us. Tucked away in the Nilgiris, this is called Bison valley because there are more than a 100 bisons spread over a few thousand acres.

Sitting on our perch, under the canopy which afforded us a sweeping glimpse of the valley and the plains in the distance, we saw moments when the earth seemed to touch the sky. Silence and the song of birds. For four whole days, we were the only ones staying in the clean and spacious Planters Bungalow. The food was wholesome and vegetarian.

This is one place we would love to come again and again and again...

One flew...

Some horrors refuse to leave you. Journeying through the intimate landscape of theatre puts one in close contact with the intricacies of human behaviour and relationships. Sometime ago I was invited to work in a leading women's college in the city and the subsequent opportunity to work with a teacher there. I was asked to initiate a theatre movement in the institution and this lady was co-ordinating this venture.

I soon discovered that madame was a self confessed expert in 'curing' dyslexia. Fresh from the after-effects of a path breaking Bollywood film which throws light on Dyslexia, I was curious about her approach in 'treating' the same.

Her solutions were bizarre and aimed at defeating the person rather than the 'problem'. God forbid anyone who approached this woman. She was herself a confused soul and her authoritarian methods would have definitely left psychological scars on her students. What characterised her was a super-human persistence at the risk of breaking down the student. While there are multi-disciplinary methods which initiate learning and create vital breakthroughs, what I saw instead was a primitive mindset.

This is probably true in a larger perspective. The wrong people are very often in the wrong jobs.

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When it's dawn...

Death is not extinguishing the light;

it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come

- Rabindranath Tagore

When I recently went to a hospice for terminally ill cancer patients, I was forced to face some of my inner fears. 12 years ago, an acquaintance lived out his last fight with Cancer at this very place. I was younger, fearful and absolutely not inclined to see death at such close quarters. That memory was all the more punishing, when he had asked my mother, who had gone to see him, how I was...

And here I was in the avatar of a performer in a Playback ensemble, at the same place, the fears very much intact.

But what I learnt was that it wasn't about them, it was about me. It was about how ready I was to accept them, because they had already accepted me. They loved our performance. They laughed at their foibles, and celebrated their stories. They re-lived precious ordinary moments. The glow on their faces said everything.

If I could go back in time...

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Death by Powerpoint!

'Death by Powerpoint!', the trainer said a glint in his eyes, the audience looked back at him dazed. 'It's a joke', he feebly commented, still there wasn't the faintest smile anywhere. He was into his nth power point slide and wanted to see if his audience was with him at all. At the fag end of a series of training sessions, the participants from numerous countries were already 'dead'.

Trainers came in with big titles, from far off Pune, from the Indian Institute of Science, with army backgrounds, Psychiatry, 'art', fierce communists, gender experts, social welfare...you name it, they were all there.

No doubt, they were all experts in their own fields, but sadly to a group which was coming to terms with the English language their unending lectures only created confusion.

Any presentation can be made interesting. It is the art of communication. You have to play with your audience. Create exciting possibilities, draw them out of their comfort zones, gently at first and then they will join you. The mantra of a great training session is not about how many PhD's you have, it is about how 'young at heart' you are. It is about weaving a piece of magic for your participants.

Oh and what about our clever trainer, who cracked the joke...well he went on to his next power point slide.

(Moments from a 10 nation gathering at Bangalore).

a lesson in contrasts

There is a Pakistani girl among the group. Articulate, sophisticated and with her striking looks she's a photographer's delight. In her modern clothes she is very much home here. You might wonder that she actually comes from a so-called 'conservative' society. There is another lady from Bangladesh, a self professed 'open' society, but this participant wears a robe which covers her head and her body. It is such a contrast. I just realize how little I know about my neighbours and that as far as 'truth' goes, the media has got it horribly wrong.

(Moments from a 10-nation gathering in Bangalore)

birds of a single feather

We were all seated in a room. There were Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Indians, Nepalis, Thais, a Pakistani...people from over ten nations! But all of us looked so alike. If you didn't ask their nationality - they could all be mistaken for just another bunch of people. And, that moment was empowering. It certainly was, for me.
(Moments from a 10-nation gathering in Bangalore)

Pic Courtesy: Big Foto