It’s all over baby blue

September 29, 2008 | Filed Under Point of View, Seinfeld | 2 Comments 

A little more than 3 months back I started seeing Seinfeld. In chronological order that is. One episode after another, one season after another. 180 episodes later and after seeing them all, I am here writing to you. I have seen them all. Seen them all. I have sat with them in the coffee house listening to their weird conversations, absorbing their quirks and being amused at their ideas.

I have seen them through countless broken relationships and innumerable failures in life and work. I have seen them be nasty to each other, pull each other down, be sarcastic. There is no love between them. No seeming love at the least. But they can’t live without each other. They are very conscious about showing it though. That’s how they choose to be.

So me dedicating a blog entry to them and telling them how much i loved it, will totally not go down well with the gang. Too sentimental it would be.

There’s a scene where all four of them get down from the train and move in different directions. Elaine is the last remaining person and she says, “Bye?”

If you see Seinfeld  like I did, watch it alone. All by yourself. Be the 5th person amongst them. You will realize they will feel real.

Thank you guys, thank you for at least a thousand laughs.

This world makes a lot about faith, religion, spirituality and things like that. It’s all nice and makes you feel hopeful about life and all. But if you analyze it, it all is very artificial. Faith does not liberate you, it makes you dependent. But if there is a God, I am sure he is a funny fellow and I think he enjoys a good joke more than your servility.

Something I learnt over the last few months – ‘keep the humor’ (and not the faith)

Now get on with your life.

Been a while

September 28, 2008 | Filed Under blah | Leave a Comment 

I was having problems with logging on to wordpress. The solution was out there but I was just too lazy to do it. It was a very peculiar problem, I had to delete all my plugins to get it running again. So if you were subscribed via email to this blog, you might not get updates.

I have been using Google Reader a lot frequently. though I must say that I hate how blogging has become performance oriented. It’s like everyone is playing some kind of role. Of course that’s how you get more hits. But so much for hits.

More later. Hopefully I shouldn’t have problem signing in again.

Chaitra – The Advent of Life

September 1, 2008 | Filed Under Theatre & Movies | 5 Comments 

Happened to see a play today. It was called Chaitra. My first play in Pune. It was performed by students of National Center of Performing Arts in association with National School of drama. The play was directed by Mohit Takalkar. It was announced that he was leaving for London soon to work with the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for a few months. I hope he comes back, he is an amazing talent and theatre in India needs him. The two plays (his) that I have seen and he has directed seem to be inspired by the theatre of the absurd. Waiting for Godot by Beckett is the best example of such plays.

Chaitra is based on Tagore’s lyrical play and has sufi touches to it. Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It was performed in two acts. One act was in the lobby and the second was in the theatre. The play was being shown inside Pune University at an auditorium called Namdeo Sabhagriha. The theatre was packed on both days and it just tells how beautiful an audience Pune has. Pune is probably culturally at par with Calcutta. Both the cities have an intellectual audience and love art. I am glad to be in this city.

In the first act I particularly liked the character of Kavi Rakhshasi Bhushan, played by a girl, playing man in a moustache, who for her dimunitive frame had a great throw of voice. In fact most of the students showed talent and the play was entertaining as well as thought provoking – like theatre of the absurd should be. Great team effort and it’s an absolute must watch.

Earlier in the day, I woke up from my afternoon siesta because of a loud bang. It almost felt like a bomb had exploded. But it was probably a cloud burst. Pune had heavy rainfall in the evening. I had bicycled to the auditorium. Oh! yes I have bought a bicycle . On the way back, I had to bicycle back in the rain.

As I was bicycling down a gentle slope of the university campus on a dark road with lots of rain splashin on my face, I wondered if that was what happiness in its purest form was. I was smiling and breathing through my mouth. Chaitra, which means Spring seemed to have paid a personal visit to me in another form.