Ok. I give up. I surrender. Uncle, whatever. But hey, I was ambushed!!!

No fair.

They told me that he was an actor, director and film maker. They told me he was born in Mumbai, trained in Sweden, a trained clown, an award winning performer and a magician.

They also told me that the evening would be all about a journey of discovering self, answering deep questions and possibly finding myself.

They told me too, that his name was Rupesh Tillu.

And everything they told me was true.

This dimension of The Park’s New Festival 2015 was appropriately presented at Kismet, which I always think is the Kingdom of my young friend and DJ Maharaja Piyush Bajaj.

First things first, I loved his contraption on stage. Metaphorical. Glint of metal. Effortless movement.

And I loved his body. It started speaking the moment he landed on stage…and the music began.

But…and this is purely personal…it started speaking without a preamble. There was no warming up to the audience. No attempt at a connect.

Bang!!! And we were underway.

So the first few times he asked the audience how they were, and also picked some random members and accused them of being premature ejaculators…the audience, or at least I…did not know how to react.

As the evening progressed various facets of Tillu’s skills were brought to the forefront. Outstanding was his mind, body, sound and light coordination. Maybe his English was not quite up to the mark, but yes, I realised that I was being a bit too proper.

But let’s face it…I am not made for meaningless profanity. And definitely don’t like it when mime crosses the decency border…stops the moon walks and the glass door improvisation…and starts gross definitions of the size of one’s penis. Twisted!!!

Let me at this stage clarify that the audience was lapping it all up. Cat calls, whistles, the whole nine yards.

Specifically there was one loud guy in the audience who knew exactly when to laugh…except that his clock was going a couple of seconds faster. So he ended up sounding like a Joke Alarm.

But the people who enjoyed the show the most, had no business being there. Two young kids in the front row were laughing innocently at all of Rupert’s physicality and antics. And while it was endearing up to a point, I felt that the Organisers had erred on this side of the Age Limit.

At the end of the evening when I went back to the bar for a glass of chilled water, I had the strong feeling that there was a circuit break somewhere.

All the elements were there. And they had been revealed in a kind of pre-planned sequence. But somehow, all the elements did not quite add up. The light flickered. But did not light up.

I feel the lack of connect was to blame. I may be wrong. But I don’t think so.

But it was specially commissioned for this festival. And I like the sound of that. There was a genuine attempt to take this kind of story telling into mainstream entertainment.

So what if the dish was served before it had cooked. We could still smell the right flavours, see the right colours, textures…and we could see the seasonings waiting on the side.

Maybe next time we see Tillu, he may have matured into a Cordon Bleu Masterpiece.

I wish him all the best.