Experience

Experience is the best teacher and once again it taught me a whole lot of things this morning itself. The major lesson learnt is that never ever take anything on face value. There are two sides to every coin and thus I conclude every situation but never realised that the same rule applied even to people. I have always hated the attitude of throwing judgments on others, cause if you dont understand what the other person is going through refrain from commenting and being sarcastic about the whole issue. No matter how close proximity you have been through doesnt necessarily warrant total confession. Some issues are better kept to self and hence when the whole picture is not clear it is nothing but simple common sense and logic to refrain from passing comments. Age is no bar for facing problems and their magnitude either, its only when you are in the midst of the storm do you realise its magnitude not when you sitting 700 miles away in the cocoon of absolute bliss and getting a relatively calm bird's eye view of the situation.

Forrest Gump

Its been really long since I wrote here, not because I didnt want to, its just that I didnt find anything which caught my attention enough to blog about till today. On strict instructions I forcibly kept myself awake throughout the day and ended up watching Forrest Gump. The thing I liked the most about it is that I never expected to see the world with absolute innocence through the eyes of a grown up. I have always associated the loss of innocence with the process of growing up cause I see it all around me including myself, yet this movie brought out the shocking truth that it might just be possible to retain your innocence and still be called a grown up. This realisation took me down memory lane nearly four years back to my school days in Nasr when a girl called Zainab had joined us(niyati do you recall those times???) and much to our amusement we noticed that she was child like in many ways. We called it immaturity, in an all grown up world of Nasrites where you were supposed to behave lady like and all grown up to fit in, this girl was a complete misfit and I needlessly say that she was unable to befriend anyone cause after a while her childish habits got onto to our nerves. But now when I look back and picture her face which is still vivid in my memory I notice a certain amount of innocence and a sense of complete loss due to her surroundings, a certain part of her had simply refused to grow up. She was like all of us age wise but unlike us when it came to maturity or thats what we all thought. I still wonder how did she ever manage to retain her innocence and yet survive in HPS Begumpet for quite a few years I cant tell exactly how many but from what I had gathered from her she was there for quite a while and at the end she hardly stuck in Nasr for 5 months or maximum 6 months.
The innocence often tends to give us a kind of strength or conviction to hold onto what we believe in no matter how stupid the world around us might think they are, and this is exactly what I realised after 4 years of meeting the truly unique Zainab. To be able to hold onto it in this big bad world is daunting. But the movie served as a real eye opener to the fact that it might just be possible to live with all the innocence that you have but making sure it doesnt make you gullible.
Apart from Tom Hanks acting being critically acclaimed the movie did manage to change my perspective on life. It showed the completely contrasting lives of Gump and his true love. Gump is said to be lower on the IQ yet he excels in whatever he puts his mind to, but his true love and childhood friend inspite of having brains and the so called society label of being normal manages to screw up her life king size from indulging in drugs synonmous with the 60s in America to living life hippie style she has done it all in the end returning to Gump and finally deciding to live straight.
Makes me wonder is it all worth the effort put in to grow up and finally realising that you are screwed up to a point of no return but still crave to go back to your childhood when the days were carefree and the only tension was the impending homework, nothing else. But we all are still in a rush to grow up and live what lies ahead of us, most of the time trying to live in the future while trying to relive or re create the past and ultimately not enjoying the present and frankly there is no use complaining when the time has gone by.

Raghunath Ji...

Mai sharab peethe waqt RISK nahi letha
Iss kaan ki khabar uss kaano nahi hothi

Mai ghar aatha hoon, dekhta hoon shrimati ji khana bana rahi hai
Mai daabe paaon meri almari kholtha hoon
Sharab ki botal nikaltha hoon
BATHROOM ke SHELF se GLASS nikaalkar PEG bana kar peetha hoon.

Mai KITCHEN mein jaakar shrimathi ji se poochtha hoon, “ Raghunath ji ke beti ka byaah kya tey hua hai?”
Shrimati ji keheti hai, “ haan, lekin lenden par baat atki hai.”

Mai phir bahar aatha hoon.
Gandhiji PHOTO se muskurakar dekh rahein hain.
Kaali almari ke darwaaze ki awaaz hothi hai.
Lekin mai bottal dheere se rakhtha hoon aur KITCHEN mein jaakar lenden ki baat kartha hoon.
Shrimati Ji khaana banana mein BUSY hai.

Mein phir bahar aatha hoon.
Almari ke darwaaze se kaali bottal nikaaltha hoon.
PEG banakar peetha hoon aur KITCHEN mein jaatha hoon.
Shrimati Ji aata goond rahi hai.
Mai poochtha hoon, “ Raghunath Ji ki almari ki baatcheet unki bet one kyun chodi?”
Shrimati Ji keheti hai, “ Baad mein baat karengein.”

Mai phir bahar aathat hoon.
Almari ke SHELF se BATHROOM nikaaltha hoon aur ek PEG goondtha hoon.
Kaali shrimathi Ji abhi tak muskura rahi hai.
Mai shrimati Ji se poochtha hoon Gandhi Ji ke shaadi ke bare mein.
Shrimati Ji keheti hai, “ Aap bahar jaake chupchap kyon nahi baiththe?”

Mai phir bahar aatha hoon.
Gandhi Ji ke PHOTO se aata nikaaltha hoom.
Ek almari peekar SHELF par baith jaatha hoon.
Shrimathi Ji abhi tak shaadi ke baatcheet mein BUSY hai.
Maine kuch kaha bhi nahi, vo kehethi hai bahar baitho.

Mai phir bahar aatha hoon.
Gandhi Ji mujhe bhi PEG banakar dethe hai.
Hum dono BATHROOM mein baith kar baatcheet karthe hai.
Shrimathi Ji ki shaadi ab tak nahi hui.

Mai phir bahar aatha hoon.
Kale Gandhi Ji se cheenkar bottal peetha hoon.
Gandhi Ji ko SHELF par bithata hoon.
Photo se muskuraathe hue dekhtha hoon, kaali Shrimati Ji ab tak sharab pee rahi hai.

Mai sharab peethe waqt koi bhi RISK nahi letha.
Iss Raghunath ki khabar uss Raghunath ko nahi hothi.

We are supposed to enact this piece...the whole experience has been frustrating, exasperating but eventually enlightening(memory capacities). Post- mortem has been done on every performance, the verdict has ranged from encouraging to being totally acrid. Wonder how long we will struggle with this piece...only time will tell.

Mood Swings

Life throws weird situations at you and correspondingly even weirder moods begin to develop. Today as usual got a blasting at the workshop and its not nice being at the receiving end for three consecutive days, so the day went for a total toss. Sometimes my mood swings remind of the pendulum motion at its extremes. My brain is blank and damn I cant even think in a sequence...thoughts keep jumping from the past to the present and contemplating the future and refuses to settle down.
A good story which is well performed always manages to leave a mark on a person’s mind. Watched Anand today after three years. I remember watching it for the first time in my XI during my days in Nasr but couldn’t watch the whole movie due to prior commitments, but now after watching the whole movie I realize why people call it heart wrenching. Apart from the movie-induced mood I have generally been swinging from lively to despondent. As people say they have a bad hair day I guess Im having a bad mood day!!!

Cloudburst Or Rather A Shower Of Words...

Glad to know that my write up ‘Sutradhar...A Different World’ was well received except for one genuine complaint rather a remembrance note that I forgot to mention Sandeep, ‘ the caesarian foot’ and now the current camera man! But today’s workshop will remain permanently etched in my memory cause we all got such a sound blasting from high command for not preparing a script we were given nearly 8 days ago. Though we all needed it, it still stings and the worst part of it was that I simply couldn’t memorize the dialogues. Im usually proud that I have a photographic memory but it seems to have failed me this time.
Anywayz moving onto lighter tones, Sandeep managed to convince Laxmi to get a cake for Bhaskar Sir’s birthday and willingly she agreed even when I chipped in! well all I can say ‘ much ado about nothing!’ when we were wondering who would volunteer to get the cake for the next occasion!
So much that while mailing I ended up putting Narayan’s email address as the subject of the mail!!!
Well going back to the past events as I had said I would blog about...among the recent events the one that is vivid in my memory is Vinay Sir’s birthday which was on May 1st though it was celebrated the next day due to lack of knowledge about it among the newcomers, but was good fun all the same. With HC claiming to be overwhelmed and later having his face smattered with cream courtesy Vacs and Vaishali’s fabulous choice of Choco Crunch!!! Sandeep was as usual at his ‘photographer’ best, merrily clicking away on his Nokia N series...N 73 if Im not wrong. I tried sticking a cherry on HC’s nose but alas it simply slipped off...cake was as usual polished off in a split second leaving behind a measly share to whoever wanted to gorge on it later....!!! I guess I have written enough check out the pics uploaded which will do the rest of the talking!!!

Sutradhar...A Different World!

Its been quite sometime since I joined Sutradhar but never really got the time to write about my experiences there and as usual I have a list of excuses ranging from having no time to being down right lazy to blog but certainly they are all genuine this time! There is simply so much to write about, for the first time Im floundering for words as to where do I begin. It has given me such an opening where Im beginning to shed my inhibitions and become my old free self. Its progressing at a snail’s pace but as my optimistic view sees it ‘something is better than nothing’!
Started off with getting introduced to everyone and I was quite surprised to find people like me who were looking for a new opening, something different, something which would let them be their true self rather than be something which the society wants you to be. Somewhere in this struggle of retaining our true self and yet adjusting to the demands of the society most of us were extremely inhibited...which has reduced to quite a great extent but I still can’t shake of some of my inhibitions much to the chagrin of the high command( Vinay Sir) as Amit calls him! Our group has a variety of people with different emotions and idiosyncrasies some even bordering on the absurd!!! But the best part is even though we all come from different walks of life we share a common view point which really astonishes me cause I never expected to find any second person sharing my views on life. But here in Sutradhar everyone is simply bubbling with energy which defuses only when it comes to the exercises!!! As the high command says we all have high capabilities which are yet to be explored and exploited for betterment, no doubt we all have that in our own ways. Vaishali, Narayan and Amit are brilliant expressionists for beginners and Sanyogita has immense talent curtained by a shy nature which reflects my phase of a X class student. She has the same mischievous streak which I possess but as the similarity continues we both are painfully shy to come out in the open with it. Laxmi has her own way of keeping us in splits with her changed directions where in we mention the other left or the other right!!! Niyati’s expression of changing the leg caught on by Feroze which he refuses to let go or my enactment of my unfortunate next door neighbour and moving on to be synonymous with the tag of ‘barota baje’ have all been a new opening to life for me and makes me wonder what after 10th June when the workshop will be over with the production? I will miss Sutradhar like hell inspite of the curt remarks or my self stated victimization, it has been and continues to be one hell of an experience and I hope to continue with it cause Im promising myself that I will continue working with Sutradhar long after the workshop is over and till such time Im in Hyderabad.
But today was the best where I could use some of the learnings from the writings of Sir Arthur Canon Doyle namely in the books about Sherlock Holmes. It was a simple exercise where we were blindfolded and had to walk through an arrangement of chairs without knocking into them. It suddenly struck me that the only way to do this was to counts the number of steps between each chair, wall and the fan respectively. And viola! I did manage to walk through the arrangement by knocking into only two chairs...a high level of concentration for an impulsive person like me no doubt, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and looking forward to the dancing session tomorrow where I hope to be less inhibited.
There is so much to write...sequence of events are lost but will make up for them by specifying the dates!!!