Throwing yourself at the ground and missing.
Lewis Hamilton wins the opening race of the 2008 Formula1 Season at Albert Park! Wooohooo!
An incredibly accident-packed, incident-packed Australian Grand Prix leaves only 7 cars on track at the end of the race! Whew - only 9 official finishers. And Ferrari has 2 DNF and 4 other Ferrari-engined cars also retired (Torro Rosso and Force India).
Still -
Go McLaren! Go Lewis!!!
After many years, I am re-reading the Horatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester. Hornblower, a fictional naval officer in the Royal Navy during the times of the Napoleonic Wars, is an immensely charismatic person. He is shown as very intelligent, but unwilling to accept that merely his intelligence could cause him to rise above other people, he pushes himself and his subordinates far harder than might be necessary. He earns a respect and admiration from his crew and his superiors and over time reaches the exalted position of Rear Admiral after starting from the lowly position of midshipman.
Set in the Age of Sail, the books also give the reader a vivid insight into the life of Naval officers during the turn of the 19th Century. Problems almost incomprehensible today, like delays of months before news reaches another part of the world, are detailed in the chronicles of this wonderfully etched out character.
Read the books if you like naval or historical fiction. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.
In the very public parking lot of a large IT park in Bangalore today at lunchtime a very interesting sight was witnessed.
A dirty, but recognizably blue Daewoo Matiz was parked next to the main walkway. The engine was running, the airconditioner was on, and for a moment it seemed that the car was empty with a big cloth hung over the windscreen to keep the interiors protected from the harsh noonday sun.
But a closer look gave a very different perspective. In fact, as I was pulling out of the parking lot, the sight of a young man and woman adjusting their clothing could be seen through the rear window.
If only I could get so lucky on my lunch break!
So finally we’re coming around to the release of Firefox 3. Beta 4 has just come out, and while I was hoping that this would be the last beta of Firefox before release, it seems that there will still be (at least?) one more release to go.
And here’s a few of the things that Moz developers say is new in FF3:
So, what do I think of it? It’s pretty good! The new location bar is enough reason in itself to upgrade. Compared to the current location bars on most browsers, when you start typing some text, it shows you not just the history, but bookmarked pages as well, and not only based on the url but also on the title!
Of course, the other stuff has also improved, like the download manager (finally!) and simple but irritating bugs have been fixed, like the bug that didn’t show the full alt text when one moused-over an image.
And FF3 is fully Acid2 compliant! And it is still among the highest browsers for Acid3 (more on Acid3 later!).
There are still a few things to iron out. A few bugs, like the bookmarks page not working correctly, random crashes et al. And of course, most add-ons haven’t yet been updated to support FF3.
So, while you may not want to use this (or even the next) beta, you should certainly use it when the final release comes out - hopefully in the next month or so.
And if you aren’t already on Firefox2 then you’re not doing yourself any favours. If you want to use Opera that’s fine, but if you still are s(t)uck with Internet Explorer, then I guess you’re happy with a virussy buggy painful browser experience - your bad.
Go Firefox!
Recently at a few productions I’ve seen, there have been standing ovations. None of the productions I saw merited such overwhelming praise. It’s almost as if, starved of quality theatre, audiences in Bangalore raise average performances well above their due.
I have often wondered whether I am mistaken in my belief that the production was poor, but I am pretty sure it is not the case. I just tend to be more selective in my praise. Even the recent set of plays I commented on were not good enough to warrant getting off my butt no matter how uncomfortable the seats at Rangashankara (which is a topic for another day!).
Rather, as one can see from other reviews of the same productions, I was among the few who didn’t tear into them like a tiger into a half-dead deer. Okay the analogy is a little over-the-top, but you get my drift. And I didn’t give these performances a standing ovation.
I think we need a better understanding of theatre in Bangalore. It cannot be compared to film. Neither can it be accepted as good just because of the method or idea or plot or any one or two things. It needs to come together as a whole. Then it deserves all the applause it gets. Agree?
Not exactly a bunch of reviews, but Bangalore has seen a lot of good English theatre in the last week, and here’s my take on them.
Firstly there was Lucknow ‘76 written and directed by Abhishek Majumdar on the 1st and 2nd. Then there was my Poile Sengupta’s play Keats was a Tuber on the 4th, 5th and 6th. And finally this weekend just past, there was Invisible River by Gautam Raja.
Seeing these three plays in short succession makes one feel that English language theatre in Bangalore in still standing and those (including yours truly) who were ready to perform the final rites, were a bit hasty.
It’s not that the plays/performances were without flaws but they gave one a sense that it was worth the while to travel an hour (or longer) in maddening Bangalore traffic to watch them.
Lucknow ‘76 has an interesting premise. Working across two periods in the history of the city, 1876 and 1976, the playwright tried to show the similarities between British imperialism and the Emergency. His portrayal of the period in 1876 when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India was extremely well done. Unfortunately, the 1976 period was not nearly as well done, nor was it clearly linked together with the other story. Overall, it seemed like a good effort, but needed just a little more coherency. The acting was good, however, since there weren’t enough brochures around, I wasn’t able to figure out who played what role! The lighting was a little off the mark, tending to come in after the actors had moved. The music was performed live on stage with a single guitarist who also sang. Again, thanks to the lack of brochure, I don’t know who he was. He provided a good mood for the performance.
Two days later, was Keats was a Tuber. Directed by Ashish Sen and produced by Voices, the play was a revival of a over-ten-year-old performance, again directed by Ashish, with a mildly different cast. Pathy Aiyar took over from Preetham Koilpillai in the role of Raghu, while Stanley Pinto replaced Chippy Gangjee and Chandana Vasistha Aiyar played Damini. The production was not bad, with live music from Jagdish and Madhuri, but I was disappointed overall (having read the book… sorry script!). The play is primarily about the problems faced by Indians who speak English as opposed to their native language. Set in the English Department of a small town college, it talks of life and love and the English language. Shiv Kumar, as Mr Iyer, one of the lecturers, was stiff and wasn’t able to bring out any nuance. Ranita Hirji (Mrs. Nathan) the head of department, who asks Raghu (her nephew) to join the department to ostensibly fill up a three month teaching vacancy before leaving for higher studies abroad, was limited to being a college lecturer (formerly one in real life as well!). Stanley was good, Pathy was competent, Chandana was incapable of acting. Overall, I would have expected the play to be done differently (again having read the script), but it is upto the director! Then again, I felt that most of the audience seemed to have enjoyed it - which was the point.
Invisible River by Gautam Raja, directed by Ruchika Chanana, is set on the banks of the Ganga in Allahabad where a young doctor fighting against blind superstition is trying to clean up the river, while a young scientist is trying to prove that the river contains bacteriophages (virii that kill bacteria) which may help save lives. Starting off slowly, the premise pushes the play along with strong performances from Pritham Kumar and Veena Appiah. As I could see, the play would do well with a better child actor (and better lines for him!), while the entire concept of the Saraswathi being the invisible river is forgotten by the end of the play, even though it’s in the title!
Whew! Long post! I hope you managed to catch at least one of these performances this week. I’ll keep you updated if I hear that of repeat showings.
So, here we are - a new home for the blog. Actually, to be verbose, it’s not a new home exactly. It’s more of an update of an old home and a migration from the present rental apartment to the old home!
Of course, all this was done with the hope of getting my blogging back on track - which by past experience we have all seen - rarely happens for long! But one can always hope.
In the meanwhile, please do peruse this blog and my poetry blog (hopefully updates there will happen soon), write some comments, add me to your blogroll or feed reader and keep visiting!
It’s been two years since my oldest friend committed suicide. Somewhere, I still haven’t gotten over it. It was ironic therefore, that I came across this comic the other day:
Click on the image, the cartoonist has some valid points to make.
And here’s to you Ram: One of your favorite songs, even though I didn’t know why.
‘Suicide is Painless’
Through early morning fog I see
visions of the things to be
the pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see…
[REFRAIN]:
that suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
I try to find a way to make
all our little joys relate
without that ever-present hate
but now I know that it’s too late, and…
[REFRAIN]
The game of life is hard to play
I’m gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I’ll someday lay
so this is all I have to say.
[REFRAIN]
The only way to win is cheat
And lay it down before I’m beat
and to another give my seat
for that’s the only painless feat.
[REFRAIN]
The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn’t hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger…watch it grin, but…
[REFRAIN]
A brave man once requested me
to answer questions that are key
is it to be or not to be
and I replied ‘oh why ask me?’
[REFRAIN]
‘Cause suicide is painless
it brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
…and you can do the same thing if you please.
Q Theatre Productions brought down to India, an interesting play from New York called To The Death of My Own Family. Farah Bala, an actor, director and teaching artist, orginally from Bombay, was the only actor in this just-short-of-one-hour production about an Afghani-born American citizen in these paranoid times.
The play starts off with Nadeema (Farah), locked up on her entry back into the US following a harrowing trip to Afghanistan with her mother and siblings to rescue her father from the Taliban. As it turns out, her entire family is killed, and she returns to New York without even her baggage. She is then arrested and questioned.
The set consisted of a single bleak table and chair, and a single harsh overhead light provided a stark feel to the performance. The only prop was a small plastic packet containing scraps of letters and documents and other items (her sister’s lipstick, the AK47 cartridge that killed her brother) that Nadeema manages to cling onto while escaping from Afghanistan.
The play itself is a mixed bag. The playwright David L Meth (you can visit his website to know more about him) tries to talk about the paranoia that is gripping the United States “much like the fear that was manufactured agains Americans of Japanese Heritage during World War II“. However, my overall impression after watching the play was more of shock and anger against the atrocities committed by the Taliban.
During the post-production Q&A session, both David and the director (Peter Ratray) tried to say that the play was not necessarily about Afghanistan, but for all communities “since we all are minorities somewhere in the world“. But that didn’t quite gel with me. While the play was set around the fact that Nadeema had been arrested on entry into the US even though she was a US citizen and had grown up in New York, it seemed (to me at least) that she was trying to convince the authorities of the terrible things going on in Afghanistan.
In spite of this dichotomy of perspectives, Farah in the role of Nadeema was extremely good. Her performance was strong and moving. Her portrayal of her conversations with her family (playing both sides) was extremely believable, and she was able to make the audience empathise with her plight. Of course, one of her biggest strengths was her movements. Most actors in Bangalore are extremely limited and self-conscious while moving on stage, and it was a refreshing change to watch someone who could use the stage like it is meant to be used.
Overall, it was a good production, with some food for thought. I wish we had been able to see more of what the playwright had in mind, but nonetheless, a worthwhile one hour.
