Tag Archives: performance

Love Letters

  By spinetrak | October 22, 2005 - 11:56 am | India
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Today we were walking around the Hanging Gardens in Malabar Hill, supposedly one of the poshest areas in Mumbai, wondering what it is that made someone decide they should be using metal penguins everywhere as trash cans in the garden. There were penguins everywhere. It was good to see that there were trash cans at all to begin with, but then again, judging from the trash people were throwing across the fences of the garden, we presumably weren’t the only ones who couldn’t quite understand the penguin thing. We also didn’t quite get to see what makes Malabar Hill so posh, so off we drove, further down to Colaba.

After a number of detours through tiny streets downtown, we gave up in the silly idea of finding a parking space downtown. This was after we have been having a coffee, when a bunch of kids came to us screaming very excitedly about something or other. It turned out that they were telling us that the cops were about to tow our car. I had never seen a tow truck in this town and had sort of dismissed rumors about the cops actually towing cars, so I have been getting into the habit of parking anywhere where I didn’t seem to obstruct traffic too much. But there they were, a bunch of guys in blue overalls, plus a smiling cop who actually spoke English, about to tow our car.

Of course, there was the usual back and forth and here and there and give and take that is the regular mode of communication for us. The cop wanted to see my driver’s license and I showed him my New York State license, as I had done in other occasions like these (there had been two of them, both times for being on my mobile while stuck in traffic). In this case, however, the cop didn’t simply look at the NYS license, only to decide that he can’t be bothered to deal with me, but instead he asked what country I am from. I didn’t want to confuse him too much, so I simply said, well, New York is in America. Somehow I came to understand that they wanted me to pay 100 rupees fine at the Dadar police station. I really wasn’t in the mood for that, so I asked him, ok, give me a receipt and I pay you. I don’t know which part of that simple suggestion did the trick, but somehow the cop then decided that he can’t be bothered after all, so he just told me to park elsewhere and left. So I parked the car right next to another No Parking sign, but this one was in a dead end street, and that was good enough, I suppose.

Of course, the kids who had warned me about my car being about to get towed were very eager to get their tip, and I thought, ah well, I really never give money to kids, but in this case, they did a good job, so I gave them two rupees each.

Anyways, so downtown there was no parking of course, except that there are a few official parking lots that cost something like four rupees an hour. By that time we were absolutely starving, so we went to Indigo, which has very good Italian food. Well, the salad and the wine and the quiche was great, the pasta was pretty bad. As a special treat we had the slightly doubtful pleasure of sitting right next to a big table of Westerners who were surrounding Gregory David Roberts, the author of Shantaram, which is currently one of the two must-reads about Mumbai (the other being Maximum City).

After that we went to the National Centre for the Performing Arts to see Love Letters, a play by A.R. Gurney. Their parking lot had a big sign about being full, but this being India, we knew that such things don’t mean anything, so when we asked the parking lot attendant whether we can park there he said but of course! We quite liked the play, actually. Well, first we didn’t but it got a lot better. But what absolutely boggled our minds was that at the end, during the very final monologue of the very good male actor, right in the middle of his quiet tender speech, there were not one, but two people from the audience who walked out. With loud steps, one shuffling her feet, the other clicking her high-heels. The poor actor’s eyes followed one of them as she was making her exit from the audience, and I don’t know what he was thinking, but we just couldn’t believe it, because, well, it was just un-fucking-believable that people would be so incredibly crass and rude to make that sort (or any sort) of exit during a final quiet scene of a pretty good play.

It was really quite amazing. I mean, this wasn’t some kind of improv theater in a garage, tickets were relatively expensive and people seemed definitely upper class. But with all the crotch scratching and spitting everywhere, the car honking from behind in standing traffic at a red light, the blatant staring and Hello foreigner! wherever we go on the one hand and the obedient Yes, Sir! Thank You, Madam! one the other hand, these two walk-outs really get the first prize in our Incredible India Awards.

Dhamaal

  By spinetrak | October 12, 2005 - 8:33 am | India
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Monday evenings is Dhamaal night at the Prithvi Theatre in Juhu. Dhamaal means turmoil, frolic, and is a kind of song which is sung at the Holi festival. Basically, there were eight or so different performers and groups performing Shakespeare-inspired pieces for 10-15 minutes each. Sort of an open mic evening, except better, because they actually had to do an audition. Entrance was free, and the MC was a French-Indian guy.

The place was pretty much packed with about 200 people, mostly hip looking young people. The first performer was a very cute 10 year old boy doing a funny sketch, in English, about how William Shakespeare is actually an Indian guy. There were a number of pretty intense young men performing. Almost all the performances were in Hindi, but it was pretty interesting to me nevertheless. My Scottish expat friend and her French roommate were doing a scene in French, and even though probably hardly anyone in the audience understood a word, it was well received.

There was a very very good young actor doing a Hamlet scene in Hindi, and a very good older actor doing a scene from The Merchant of Venice twice, in two different ways (both with a fabulous colonial British accent). A smart-looking comedy scene had everyone cracking up, and there was a very weird slapstick scene of a bunch of guys pretending to be from Nagaland. Nagaland, a small province in the Northeast, has a number of indigenous tribes, so people were laughing before the troupe even entered the stage. So then they did this strange primitive dance thing around Romeo and Juliet, which sort of reminded me of how Native Americans used to be represented in very old American Western movies. Pretty dumb, a little scary, but generally harmless. It was a bit embarrassing, but people seemed to think it was very funny, which was sort of remarkable, given that the same audience obviously also had appreciated the very serious acting skills of the Hamlet guy.

Anyways, what do I know, after all, I could only get the acting and movements, and didn’t understand a word for the most part. But I will definitely be back to Dhamaal.

In other news, Ksenia is finally coming back tonight, so I am very excited!! Next week we will have our old trusted driver Deepak back. Apparently, he has a salaried job, but he seemed pretty eager to quit his job and work for us. He seemed really happy back when I picked up the Ambassador with him and was looking forward to driving it. Speaking of the Ambassador, I took it to my regular gas station today. They usually also check the oil and water, but what really cracks me up every time is that the guy there seems to like to burn his fingers. Every single time he checks on the oil, he burns his fingers, then laughs about it, and then reaches for a piece of tissue paper to wipe off the oil from the stick. Then he throws the paper on the floor, reaches for the water coolant container, burns his fingers again, and laughs again. It is very strange.

Speaking of throwing paper on the floor, last Sunday I was in a public park in Dadar to play some frisbee with some expats. As I was walking around a bit, I saw three different people throwing their plastic garbage on the floor. Just like that. The park accordingly looks pretty shitty. Another day some guy was throwing his empty plastic bottle out of his car while driving. Just like that. Ugh!

Today is a holiday, Dassehra, by the way. From what I gather, it is a festival in honor of the goddess Durga. Dassehra means ‘the tenth’ and it is celebrated at the end of the nine-nights Navaratri festival, during which hymns are recited to Durga. Apparently, Dassehra is a special holiday for brides and engaged people. All I can say is that somewhere in my neighborhood last night there was a big disco evening, and they played that incredibly awful song by Queens We Will Rock You. Over and over again.

Astad Deboo

  By spinetrak | September 29, 2005 - 1:00 pm | India
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Yesterday I went to the Prithvi Theatre in Juhu to see Astad Deboo, one of the few Indian modern dancers/choreographers. The Prithvi Theatre is quite an interesting venue; I had wanted to go see something there for a while. Tickets are only a bit more than a dollar, but unfortunately there were many empty seats, and probably not because the evening’s program leaflet was almost half the price of a ticket. I can’t say I loved it all, but it definitely had its moments. He is quite fascinating to watch, and the eight dancers (all of them deaf teenage girls) were very impressive.

Afterwards, I went to a place called Seijou, which had its regular French DJ evening. He wasn’t so great though, but the place is nice (and pretty much empty until midnight), despite the assembled collection of blinking red yellow green blue orange lightbulbs. Maybe those were leftovers from Ganpati, or maybe they are already preparing for Diwali or Christmas or something. Or maybe they thought it looked cool, which it didn’t.

In other news, I don’t know what my maid did today, but she must have done something to disturb my local cockroach population, because when I got home, there were five big and fat ones running around in the kitchen. The strategically placed can of NEW! HIT! COCKROACHES! came in handy though, so that was the end of that. Unfortunately, I also dropped my bowl of yummy Indian food, so there was a nasty mix of dead cockroaches and food on the kitchen floor, and me without any idea where the maid keeps the mop. I do remember her buying one, or at least asking for money for it, but I ended up using old issues of the Times of India, which gave it a nice original touch I felt.

I also ventured out onto the Western Express Highway for the first time in two weeks or so, just to see how the highway construction mafia is coming along. Not surprisingly, they are doing great, and so the highway still looks like one of the tougher stretches of the Paris-Dakar Rally. So I was thinking, if even a Texas DA can manage to finally get Tom DeLay by his balls and hopefully throw the guy in jail, I wonder how long it will take … But, ah well, I guess until then I will take the local roads to get to work. And this weekend I am set on getting out of town to Kashid, which is supposedly a very nice and quiet place, one of the nicest beaches outside of Goa, and only three or four hours outside of Mumbai.

Head-On

  By spinetrak | September 16, 2005 - 12:57 pm | India
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Monday evening I drove downtown to see a German/Turkish movie called Gegen Die Wand / Duvara Karsi (Head-on) at the Goethe-Institute. The little room where they were showing the movie was packed with maybe 80 people, mostly Indian intellectuals, young and old. The movie plays in Hamburg, Germany, so I was happy to see some pictures of my hometown. It is about a slightly confused young Turkish couple living there. He is suicidal (well, they both are), she wants to get out of her traditional Muslim family. They meet and ten minutes later, she asks him to marry her for show, so she can live a little, have a little fun, do some drugs and fuck around a bit, and then it goes downhill from there. Not surprisingly, the movie is rated R in the US for strong graphic sexuality, pervasive language, some brutal violence and drug content, while it is PG13 in Germany (actually FSK12). So watching this in India, which is even more prude than the US, was quite interesting.

I quite liked the movie. The characters are very believable, the music is great, and the story is pretty good. Also, the couple might as well have been Indians living in London, so I thought, I wonder what the audience is thinking. After all, there’s a lot of suggestive dancing in Bollywood, but certainly no real kissing, let alone full-on sex, full nudity, or cocaine – and there was plenty of that here. Some seemed to be squirming around in their seats a bit and going tsk, tsk, and at least one was leaving early. Unfortunately, there was no talk or discussion afterwards, but given that censorship is still alive and kicking around here, this movie won’t make it to the theaters any time soon.

Tuesday was another long evening in traffic, and when I got home and the next day I felt kind of sick. It wasn’t anything serious, and I am actually surprised that I’ve been here for three months now and still haven’t been really sick. Judging from the doctor in NYC, who had given me all my shots, I would have thought that I’d be guaranteed to catch a life threatening disease just by looking at the food here. So I guess he was just full of crap. Another expat at work did actually end up in hospital for a few days a while ago, but that was because he went to get food at the local Subways, and, well, you kind of deserve to get hospitalized for going to Subway in India, or anywhere else, for that matter.

In other news, yesterday I read in the paper that India ranks way behind Iraq in terms of doing business, as measured by number of forms to produce and red tape to consume in order to open a business. It doesn’t really surprise me, because bureaucracy really is spelled in all caps here. There is a pervasive culture of rules and regulations that don’t seem to make any sense whatsoever and for which no-one seems to know or care about what’s the reason. My simple standard question Why? is regularly met either with blank stares or with excuses and explanations that are incredibly surreal and mostly represent a very tight circular loop.

But I’ll stop my rant there and move on to the Western Express Highway, which I have basically stopped using. After the sewage of the big floods had receded (final number is 944mm in one day), they had fixed up the highway pretty well and traffic was moving swiftly. A week or so ago, everything was great. Then there was another day or two of heavy rain last week, and the surface developed potholes the size of the Grand Canyon again, and the road looked like someone had set off thousands of little landmines. It was truly ridiculous. The funny thing is, there’s only a few long stretches like that. Other parts of the highway are perfectly fine. So it is obviously not incompetence or lack of construction materials or engineering skills. It is simply criminal corruption and big business. Well, if they fixed it up properly, they wouldn’t make any money, I was told. Is anyone going to try to throw the construction companies and the politicians that give them the contracts into jail? I guess not – after all, everybody seems to agree that law enforcement and the judicial system are pretty much non-existent. So I guess the Haliburton business model is alive and kicking here as well.

OK, enough of my rants, I will go get some sleep so that I will be fully rested and prepared for tomorrow’s final Ganesh extravaganza.