In retrospect - Writers’ Game Garage Sale

July 23, 2008 | Filed Under Poetry, Theatre & Movies, writers game | 4 Comments 

Writers’ Game was born on 6th March 2005 as an offshoot of Open Theatre, which is not around anymore.

It doesn’t seem like 3 years and the group in a way has experienced everything that a group of people does. But it’s still alive. 9 almost strangers came together and the only thing that bonded them together was writing.

Amongst us we cover the four corners of India and amongst us we have traveled to various parts of the world. We are largely an underground group but surface once in a while. Last weekend we surfaced at the Prithvi Cafe, showcasing some of our writings in an interesting manner.

Personally for me, it was a great privilege to be in the lap of Prithvi Theatre, not as an audience but as an artist. To talk to people about writing, share my writing, and try to sell it. I met a number of interesting people - from beautiful women who asked me to write poems for them to playwrights who expressed the possibility of working together. I discussed my fascination with the moon with a girl whose folks could never understand her fascination for the moon. Yes, one waits for conversations like that. I spoke to Dharini about how we could do this for a living. It didn’t feel real.

I am someone who procastinates till the last moment. I was rescued by my friends - Dahlia, Haribabu, Boy, Chandni & Neha, who not only helped me get my stuff ready by working all through Friday till early Saturday but stood like pillars when we faced a mini crisis. And amidst all this they would push me to do interesting things. The standards were raised and I for a while felt like the protagonist of a Hollywood sports movie, who literally rises from nowhere.

The days of the sale I felt numb. I wanted to feel happy and elated but I knew I had to wait for the event to get over to truly experience the elation at peace. It’s almost 3 days post the event and I am finally writing this post. I do feel the elation and a sense of achievement. But more than that I feel fulfilled that I was at Prithvi and I called myself a writer. It needs guts to stand in that mosque and call yourself a believer. Saturday morning  I spoke to Sanjana Kapoor as some things needed to be sorted out and I was curbing my excitement of talking to a lady that I have admired for a long time. She is a wonderful person - exceptionally wise and reasonable. I have seen Shashi Kapoor many a times at Prithvi and have whenever I smiled at him have always got one in return. It’s easy to fall in love with such people.

For the garage sale, we had put up many interesting pieces for sale. One of the things we had come up with was a poetry jhola, which consisted of poetry written by us. It was only thing that people could not pay and take away with them. For people to draw out a poem, they had to drop a 5 Rs coin in a jar. If they didn’t like the poem they could have the coin back. I would love it when people would draw out poems again and again.

The poetry jhola is still with me. I have kidnapped Dharini’s bag which is serving as the jhola. But I didn’t have the heart to separate the poems from it. I think they are comfortable in there. On an idle evening, it will be great to sit with a glass of wine and draw random poetry from it and read.