Somewhere in Space: February 2016

Guntur is not a very drivable town. Its small lanes and its small town mentality will always ensure that the town stays away from the Smart City tag. Conversation in the streets and the cafes seems to centre on movies, Telugu Movies…how much they made or how much they lost…Tobacco and Chillies…and the typical flexing of political muscles. And yes, the latest girl up for exploitation.

My memory banks were in for an upheaval yesterday when I went to Guntur after a few years. If I looked straight or down, nothing had changed. The same narrow confines. The same bunches of people who seem to have nothing much to do except discuss life on the streets. The same fascination for oversized cars…possibly to accommodate oversized egos. In them days there used to be Buicks and Plymouths, Studebakers and Cheverolets. Now there are the Korean SUVs, the Hyundais, the Fortuners and the poor man Mahindras too.

The town’s Parking Sense is amazing. Park where you want, when you want. And if there’s traffic behind you, they’ll adjust. But there’s a condition. You cannot park in front of wherever you actually want to go.

No Sir. You have to park…and walk. The roads are so packed that the traffic flow threatens to swallow your car by erosion.

In this wonderful ambience I asked the wife the standard question. I’m in Guntur. Is there anything you want from here? Pat came the reply…Korvi Kaaram.

Don’t ask me what it is, I had no clue. But my host apparently knew. And he took me straight to a shop – Athithigruha Foods.

I stepped in and I knew that I was in a place like none other I had visited. The shelves were lined with neatly packed plastic pouches with intricately calligraphic legends…pointing to Spice Powders such as Nuvvula Karam, Nalla Karam, Kandi Podi, Nalla Karam Podi, Korvi Karam Pachadi and many more.

I picked up what had been ‘ordered’ and also a portion of what was being freshly packed…Nalla Karam Podi.

Now I’m waiting for a plain rice, ghee and powder kind of a day…perhaps it is tomorrow :-)

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I had to leave a concert early last night. And it was one of the few times in my life that I felt that my profession was making unreasonable demands of me.

While that tiny moment of regret was soon forgotten as I got what I was looking for, I felt that the experience, however partial it was, had be celebrated and shared. So here goes…

The performers were two musicians I respect tremendously. Dr. Mahesh Joshi and Flute Nagaraju. While I had seen them both individually, their pair on stage was only a YouTube experience till last night. And live, they were amazing.

They were performing at the Goethe Zentrum Concert Hall next door as part of Shunya - Ambareesh Pittie’s exhibition of photographs. Under the banner ‘Sagas of Raagas’.

Now I’m not too big a fan of Pittie’s images, I find them too dark for my liking. But last night his black and white images of performers on stage were quite something. Hung up on all sides of the hall they gave me the feeling that we were all, musicians and audience alike, surrounded by magical memories.

The feeling of being suspended in a vacuum of sorts was enhanced when the lighting was muted and Mahesh and gang performed sitting. The normally high energy Mahesh was in a strange, unfamiliar mellow zone. And he ruled.

But I think even he was surprised when audience participation hit the right notes with surprising consistency. And the audience…it spilled over from the chairs…onto the floor…into the aisles…

There were a few of us who had to leave early, but I saw that each of us made it a point to excuse ourselves. A far cry from those shy, awkward exits one is used to.

But I am digressing.

Last night was one where I felt that the word ‘Mahoul’ was a ‘Mahesh’ creation. He took the audience by hand and led them like the proverbial Pied Piper into the hills, the valleys, the shores and the skies of music. (Well, he did have the Piper for able company).

So much like a Tour Guide did he lead the audience that I’m sure the Tourism Department would welcome him into their fraternity.

Thank you Amita Desai and my friends at GZ. What an evening. What a calm. And thanks to Ambareesh for conceiving this performance of performances.

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About 5 years ago I had attended the Park's New Festival. That year it turned out to be a sweet and sour experience. And I had written about my reactions to the good and the bad.

I stumbled upon the blog again and found to my horror, my surprise and my satisfaction...that my opinions hadn't changed. So here goes...

I have just had the fortune of being part of two distinctly different evenings hosted by The Park as part of their New Festival. I had unfortunately missed Preethi Athreya’s Inaugural Dance Performance but managed to make it to Vidur Kapur’s Stand Up Comedy Act and to Dastangoi which was billed as the revival of the ancient art of storytelling.

I have always been of the opinion that the moment a performer takes to the stage, whether he or she is a dancer, actor, musician, acrobat, buffoon or whatever, he essentially becomes a story teller. The story may be different, it may be funny, sad, action packed, placid...whatever... but up there on the stage is the story teller, down here is the audience and what lies in between is the tale.

In this context the Stand Up Comedy Routine has always fascinated me. While the way it evolved so quickly from being a mere party routine to a form by itself is rather impressive, what is more awe inspiring is how the form allows the story teller to use his or her ethnicity or oddity and the audience make up itself to strike a common chord that serves as the connect between each other.

Or at least that was how I thought it used to be.

Because I don’t know how and I don’t know when. But I seem to have missed the turn. I don’t even know when the definition of Stand Up Comedy or even plain old comedy shifted from ‘laugh with me’ to ‘laugh at me’.

Laugh at me – I am fat. Laugh at me – I am Jewish. Laugh at me – I am black, brown, yellow...Laugh at me – I am blonde. Laugh at me – I am Polish. Or Mexican. Or Puerto Rican. Or more recently, laugh at me – I am Indian. Not the plain brown piece of wheatish complexioned bread. But the American Indian. Arrey Baba, not the American Indian who was there on the continent 1492 BC (Before Columbus) but the American Indian who has evolved as a confused breed in the last few decades.

Here I take a pause and catch my breath.

Now where was I?

In all fairness I must also confess that I seem to have lost the track of story-telling which I always thought was an art of keeping audiences engrossed and occupied and perhaps even informed. But never did I imagine that story telling could be reduced to an exercise in aggression from the performers’ side and a self induced stupor of masochistic madness that I am still shuddering from the penance. And applause reduced to mechanical clapping on demand (demand after obnoxious demand...Come On Clap for Me Hyderabad).

Rambling am I? Well...

Vidur’s was to me was a case of someone trying too hard to live up to a reputation. A reputation which was not even a myth yet and one that had been created under the falsest of pretences.

And he tried to milk the audience with his snippets of misfortune. Oh My God I am Indian. And worse, I am gay!!! I went to school in Delhi, London and the US of A. I kicked up my corporate job with Booze Allen and Who’sThat...The only trick he didn’t try was telling us that he had been gang raped...and the only words he seemed to have learnt in his cumulative schools were fuck, cock, penis and Bitch! And surprise surprise he did NOT have an unhappy childhood.

The Dastangoi team which spoke impeccable English and delightful Urdu re-established my faith in performance. There was harmony at work here ladies and gentlemen...a unique case of a story sailing down a river of attention...and helpful voices steering it, pushing it, powering it along.

The format of using two individuals to tell the story...the idea of giving them both dynamically changing roles...giving them the space to explore the horizons of the tale but restricting them to the physical limitation of the stage...it took the best of a variety of techniques and blended them, fused them into a replay of history...

Something that made me say at the end of a thoroughly enjoyable evening...Dastangoi...what a story!

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