New Sense

I recently had the pleasure of watching a Indian adaptation of the classic Moliere play titled “The Imaginary Invalid”. Staged at the KH Kala Soudha in South Bangalore and performed by energetic cast of a budding theater group, the play combined a hilarious plot and brilliant characterization to make it a memorable evening.

The Imaginary Invalid is the story of a hypochondriac father who wants to get his daughter married to a doctor, so that his medical bills will be taken care of. Adding to the mix is a second wife who would rather have her step-daughter converted to a nun so that she can grab all of the man’s property.

One of the biggest winners of the play has to be its Indianisation. For far too long we have had Indians playing western plays trying hard to fake western accents and ending up with abysmal performances. The Imaginary Invalid makes it a point to bring across the diversity of India by making the characters from different Indian backgrounds, which worked wonders to the comedy and the relevance of the play.

The cast’s energy and enthusiasm is what immediately catches our attention, Praveen who plays the protagonist combined with the actor playing the maid servant were excellent with their comic timing. The character of the young suitor who was coached to impress the protagonist was one of the most memorable of characters in the ensemble. The stage design also stood its own as one of the important characters of the play. It provided the perfect canvas for the actors to work on.

The three act play had its good and bad moments. Personally I throughly enjoyed the second act but was a bit more skeptical as the third act seemed to drag a little longer than expected. The laugh lines were well handled and it seemed like the audience was enjoying the play right thru.

All in all the Imaginary Invalid was a well executed adaptation of the French play(Le Malade imaginaire). It provided for a excellent evening of entertainment.

Ps: The Imaginary Invalid is being performed again later this week at the Alliance Francaise.

Before the IPL started  I made a promise to myself that I would watch at-least one match in the stadium this season.  A couple of days ago, thanks to Anant I had the pleasure of watching Royal Challengers Bangalore take on the Rajasthan Royals in Bangalore.

We had easily one of the best seats in the stadium and had a great view of the match. The hospitality was great but only for the spectators, the visitors(Rajasthan Royals) got abushed by the home team(Royal Challengers Bangalore). RCB were so dominant that they finished the match easily in half their allotted overs.

The one sided match was not very exciting but the event itself was so amazing that it was easily of the best experiences of my life…
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Story telling was one of the earliest forms of art I was introduced to. In it I found my first super star, my grandmother. I remember fondly how my sister and I would huddle up around her and insist that she tells us a story. She would sit down calmly and vividly explain to us the details of the scenes and characters that we ended up falling in love with.

One of my biggest influences from this part of my life was the story of “Chandrahasa”, the mythical south Indian king whose namesake I became. Considering the importance that stories had in my life, I always considered stories as a wonderful way to reach out to people.

Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a single day workshop on story telling. The workshop was organized by Hippocampus as a part of the HOO’s Tales – Carnival of Stories. Conducted by professional story tellers, the event was a wonderful reminder about the power of stories.

Conducted by world renowned story tellers Jeeva Raghunath and Craig Jerkins, the workshop was a wonderful mix of learning an ancient art form, learning about how to communicate and reach out to children and taking a walk down memory lane listening to stories again.

With a diverse group which included teachers, parents, grand mothers and IT professionals, the workshop was wonderfully entertaining and enlightening. During its course we were ourselves made to perform and we had short discussions about what worked and why. During the course of the evening we had all woken up that hidden story teller within us and it simply felt great.

I personally believe that events like these are a must for young parents. The amount of experience and insight to be gained is enormous and who knows it might turn you into that cool parent

Ps: The Carnival of Stories continue in Chennai for the next couple of days, If you can attend the workshop. Details: Carnival Of Stories

There are four concerts I have always wanted to attend. Two are artists that I immensly appreciate and two are bands that I have listened to for years. The bands are Euphoria and Strings. The artists are Kailash Kher and KK. At different times in the last couple of years I have missed every single opportunity to attend their concerts but yesterday my luck took a lovely U turn…

I was informed about the concert by Chaithra thru this tweet announcing that she had won VIP passes to the concert. I was simply excited about the concert and replied to her asking when and where it was happening… I was hoping to get tickets online if they were available(they werent ). Anyway she replied back a while later asking if I wanted the tickets. And jumped at the opportunity…
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I dont like Multiplexes. I like the ability to get tickets without standing in long queues and to know that I can manage to get tickets for a movie even on its very first day, without taking a day off from office. I thank the multiplexes for that.

But multiplexes have slowly killed off the movie experience that I love and cherish so much. The feeling of being in a theater with 350 other people, the screams and the whistles, the hooting and the jeering… You know the whole feeling of “going to a movie”.

Thats why I cherish the few theaters that still have that magic. Rex, Urvashi and (to some extent) Fame Shankarnag (all in Bangalore) still have that feeling in them. All the other beautiful theaters are now malls with Multiplexes in them. I understand the competition is hard to keep up with and the population exploding movie going is a very popular thing… In a way, I am still happy that despite the rat race there are still a few real theaters out there.

Last evening when I went to watch Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, that feeling came back and boy did it come back with a revenge. The crowd was the most awesome crowd I have watched a movie with. They were screaming for every joke and actually singing along with a few songs. The cheering when a guest star came was amazing and the laughter was addictive. Forget the movie, the crowd made my day

All that brought back memories of a long time back, before all the black tie multiplexes took over. I know its futile to live in the past but for one evening it felt nice to be back there