Clowning around with Hamlet

The long weekend was broken up by work on Saturday. But still it was a good weekend.
The Kalaa Utsavam at the Esplanade this year had some great shows lined up. Thanks to work, I was only able to catch two of them. And o boy, where they worth it.

The first one I saw this thursday, was Hamlet: the Clown Prince, directed by Rajat Kapoor

So a bunch of clowns- you know striped socks, red nose and all, decide to put up Hamlet. This could be the best thing that has happened to our old, familiar Hamlet in a while. Because, when a bunch of fools, take serious drama and turn it into a circus, the depth and complexity of the original suddenly becomes a lot more apparent. Let me explain.

Over the course of the four hundred years since the play's been written, poor prince Hamlet has been dissected obscenely- the character of a boy who thinks too much, does too little, means well, is good, but makes such a mess of things in the end. Of all the gods and heroes of literature, whats this fascination with Hamlet? Maybe its because he is both fettered by his reason and burnt by his passion. Nothing works for him - not his blue blood, not his beautiful face, not his superior talent and great education, not even his supreme sensitivity to the realities of the world. Very sad, how a man with every fortune is still helpless in the face of his own destiny.

In some ways, the story of Hamlet would do well in a circus, if for nothing else, to lighten the brevity of this awful soup. To illustrate my point, let me take you back to early 2007, to my European Literature class. We were studying Crime and Punishment that week.

Prof: This is the greatest novel in European literature. What do you think the point of this story is?

Us: *blink* then cries of-' god, guilt, religion, reason, right, wrong...'

Prof: No, none of that's it. The point is - Chill out. You've got to chill out. Otherwise, you're going to bring an axe down somebody's head.

What I mean to say is, a tragic predicament is so heavy on our senses that you sometimes the only way to see things straight and unbiased is to laugh at it. Like when you see those 'Hitler's mad' videos. Of course its absurd, but the portrayal of Hitler as a horribly spoilt big boy throwing a fit, is probably very close to what 'the anti-christ's' true nature was in the end of his days. Its serious, but its manageable. It doesn't need to happen again.

What if you saw a serious rendition of Hamlet performed or interpreted badly? It would frustrate the hell out of you. But here, you start out with the premise that a bunch of clowns, who dont really get it, are essentially just clowning around, because you know, its a famous play, they want to grab your attention bla bla, so you're much more relaxed and you give into the foolery. And then you have a lot of fun. And surprise surprise, you also gain much insight.

Technically, this shouldn't necessarily be part of an 'Indian' festival of the arts at all, because everything about it, from the premise - clowns performing Shakespeare on the 'street', in french/italian/japanese/takeyourpick gibberish-accented English, to the pop culture references ranging from The Dark Knight to the Moonwalk, was really quite borderless. I mean to say that this idea is not located in an Indian mind or the Western mind, although definitely in a mind educated in the western system. So this play is bound to appeal to audiences unfettered by history and geography, since most educated people in the world will identify with English literature and the rest will identify with American pop culture, far more than an Indian story dramatized in English or vice-versa.

I'm suddenly not sure if thats good or bad :|

Anyway, all in all, great show. 2 hours of laughter and brilliance that just has to end with a standing ovation.

P.S: You dont have to have read Hamlet, ever, to know that he's the one who sits down and contemplates suicide, with the famous - 'Tobeornottobe' line. Its everywhere. Singapore's anti-binge-drinking campaign for the youth, titled GYSB- Get Your Sexy Back has a 'smart' tag line - 'Two beers or not two beers?' - this is very different from 'clowning around with Shakespeare'. Ugh, stop lit-abuse!.

SATC 12 Years Hence: Part 2

Note: Had to break up the original post. It was too long, even for me.

Incidentally, a few days after finishing the book, aesa pointed me to a little interview on the National Public Radio, by girl blogger eM, who is famous for her SATC lifestyle in Mumbai, and a book she has written detailing a fictitious account of the same. The programme was an interview with three bloggers, from Mumbai, London and Shanghai, who are apparently changing the world.

eM goes first, so while you're starting to get suspicious that she sounds real lame and actually makes her own city sound lame ('bombay's a great city. but only for young people'), its only until you hear the bits with the other two super-bloggers from London and Shanghai, that you get the frivolousness of interview #1.

One line particularly stands out:
'yes, this is the kind of people there are in the country. Get used to it'

Its true. But that's not saying anything. There are a billion people in India. You'll find people in India living in every which way. Some people in India have always lived like that. You mean to say there was no smoking, drinking and sex in India in the 70s, 80s and 90s? No, there was no blogging in those days, so outside of the measly single digit number percentage that 'lived like that', the rest had to get through the daily struggle of life in a complex, developing country and let Hindi Films color their imagination as to what the elite do. Now those excluded from that party, have access to the internet and are insufferably curious, be it with a disapproving or aspirational attitude, about a girl who sits in her room, in her bra and boy-shorts, and blogs about her night out. What a revolution.

I don't disapprove of her lifestyle or anything. As in the case of the Sex and the City series, its just annoying when emptiness is so glamorized. In fact, its actually misogynistic as reflected by critic Stacey D'Erasmo:

'The new girl, tottering on her Manolo Blahniks from misadventure to misadventure, embodies in her very slender form the argument that feminism is not only over, it has also failed: look how unhappy the 'liberated' woman is!'

SATC, 12 years hence - i'm sure nobody cares, but anyway

I guess am a bit late, but I finally read the Sex and the City book. I almost wish I hadn't. Why? Because it makes it a bit hard for me to detest the franchise altogether. In other words, the book is actually a decent piece of literature.

This book is American Psycho for girls in the 90s. There's even a chapter where Carrie nurses a bizarre cannibalistic fantasy, a la Patrick Bateman. The book faithfully catalouges the litany of the good life in a big city- parties, fashion, beautiful people, oh-so-much-money, exclusive guest lists and an avenue to satisfy every depraved craving of a jaded society. And then Bushnell tries to clinch the nature of the disease that plagues Carrie and the girls- this kind of fattening up with instant gratification affects, as does any kind of obesity, first your heart and then your brain.

And then they made this book into a lame TV show, with all that couture, peppered with Manolo Blahniks and the lovely Mr.Big. So we all watched it and wished we too, could run after yellow taxis, in a white mink coat and seven hundred dollar heels, in the driving snow, feeling sorry for ourselves after being screwed over by yet another great-looking-but-ultimately-evil-fellow.

When SATC was finally aired in India in 2003, it played on HBO after 11,pm possibly to soften the screeches of indignant Hindu fundamentalists, who are usually asleep by then. Consequently, it was also way past my bed time- in 2003, I was preparing for my board exams and was up at 5am every single day, to MUG like my life depended on it (it did), so I didnt manage to actually watch the series until college.

But I did catch the highlights of the 'premier' (for a TV show? that'd been playing everywhere else for 5 years already, by that time?), in which all the beautiful people of Bombay had come to. Some then-famous-now-vanished starlet, was earnestly telling the camera what an important step it was for the Indian audience to finally have access to SATC, and how much in tune with 'young India', the series was. Everybody was so excited- India was finally ready and the series was to be culturally accepted, and while men would watch it, for obvious reasons, the biggest targets were women (source)

Barf.

Why barf? Because the show excluded most of what made the book great, and has mainly capitalized on the fact that lots of women like pink. They like watching stuff on TV every now and then, that paints a utopic picture of possibility, where the clothes are frilly and you can afford them and the guys are pretty and they can afford you. Of course, every episode includes a moment of clever insight, thanks to good writers, that allows it to stay some 4-5 steps ahead in quality of say, the O.C, and then there's heartbreak and cheating and drama and all the usual stuff that makes a great soap, a great soap.

Young India is not about frills and philandering, no?
Please say, 'of course not'.

I loved watching SATC for the same reasons, until one fine day, I happened to write a critique on the show for one of my film-studies classes. Needless to say, there's no better way to spoil a great TV show for yourself, than to try and make logical sense of it.

P.S. I broke up this post into two because the old one was just making my head spin!

the hyperlinked post.

Today, I found picture of the entire universe.
It looks like a fantastic suspension of gliterring dust.

On one colorful little dot,

I lost my mind over a song and another song and another song

And I was pondering over how just how young and ridiculous you have to be to feel this way.
For a strange person, sitting so far away, lost in all that space dust, to push the blood out of your heart and into your brain, a little quicker than usual.

Someone else was apparently feeling quite the same yesterday.
It was nice to share the thought.

The people use the internet for a lot of things. I use it to discover things that resonate with me.
Its so great to be alive in these times.
Of all the times gone by, these are the only ones in which telepathy is just a part of life.

Boo Hoo Bharatanatyam, nobody loves you.

Watching yet another Bharatantyam dancer give her debut last night, I briefly looked away from the stage on to the audience.

There were some 20 odd folks with any sort of connection with the dance. Of the rest of the many mothers, grandmothers, fellow danseuses, brothers, cousins, friends of the family, business associates- bla bla bla- in attendance, few were genuinely absorbed. Most looked mildly curious.

Restless kids.

All male members of the audience between 15 and 40 looking deathly bored.

Young women adjusted their saris.

Old men talked shop.

One 70 year old had definitely stayed up way past his bed time and was quietly snoozing in his seat.

And really, none of this is to the discredit of the dancer; she was out there, putting forth the very best from her 15 odd years of training. In the end though, you had to admit they were a polite and well trained audience, clapping at the right places and appreciating some of the more challenging bits with a timely applause.

How depressing. But really, how long can you describe the exploits of the Devi or Krishna in a secret codified language, to an audience that mostly doesnt understand it, and expect to bring the house down?

Actually no, nobody's even expecting that anymore. Nope, its just part of our respectable South-Indian culture to send your girls to dance class around age 4 and if they take to it, hold a grand Arangetram (trans debut) for them somewhere in their early 20s, on the grand scale of a wedding, with 200-300 people in attendance, a performance that none of them understand or enjoy all that much. Everyone's standing there extoling it as a 'vital part of our culture', while many are merely supporting their friend/sister/girlfriend, wishing they were watching TV or at Bhangra Nite.

So its a social thing, not an artistic thing. When the art form is transferred from the temple dancers to the 'daughters of respectable families', what happens to it? It turns into the western equivalent of women who play the piano in the drawing room at family dinners. A sort of desirable quality in good girls, right next to an engineering degree, a sensible, non arts job and magical ability to wake up at 5am and make 'tiffin' before heading to the office.

The high arts are high arts. They require scholarship and an liberal system that supports artists who can take this up full time as a career, as in the west. Whats going on right now is not an entirely bad system; it has integrated something essentially snooty, into the lives of the great middle class. It also gives the really exemplary exponents of the current schools, a job to do as teachers while they further the art. But really, how much 'further' can the art go, when you are catering to the sensitivities of 'respectable families'?

So what do the real artists do? They leave the country. They go west. As usual, the west has gotten over their Victorian obsession with respectability and focus on intellectual freedom, while we are still concerned about what the neighbors think (incidentally, a Victorian hangover). Hello brain-drain101.

I have the luxury of saying all of this because my parents thought it was a respectable thing to do- send your girl to bharatanatyam classes. Now that some of us have this privilege, the intelligent thing to do would be to dismantle this system that has brought Indian classical arts this far, so that it can go further. There are folks in London and Bengaluru and Singapore and to a lesser extent, in Chennai, who're already starting things up in this respect. I'm excited.

Paranormal Activity

Fatigued. I spent the last two nights feeling horribly glad to have friends on the other side of the globe, who are up at witching hour, like me. Except its daytime there, of course, and dead of the night for me.

I hate horror movies. HATE. The specific problem with this one though, is that

1. You never get to see the monster and in fact, neither do the protagonists, but it gets them anyway
2. The protagonist hasn't done anything in particular to deserve being spooked like that, but the thing gets her anyway, since the 'demon' picks you at random,
3. Its not a localized thing, but its in your 'safe-space'. Like your home. Your door, your walls, your floor, your bed, your girlfriend. There's no ancient curse or unrequited love story. Just like that, because you're unlucky.
4. It can get into your head and make you do evil things. The real horror is that Katie the damsel-in-distress, is also Katie-the-demon. She's the instrument and the victim. Poor Katie. Anybody could be Katie. O no.
5. It doesnt do anything significant. Nope. It doesnt write triple 6 on your mirror, or make you spit cockroaches or leave a trail of blood or any of that. It does small, subtle things, that could almost be a coincidence. Like flickering a light. Turning on your faucet. Rapping on your wall. Something that a mouse could do, or a loose circuit. But then you find out, there are no mice and the circuits are fine. Its enough to drive you insane. Oh it can also drag you down the hallway by your foot and then bite you, but it waits a bit before getting into the real theatrics. So until then, your fear of what it can and cannot do, is and is not doing, your inability to trust your self and all those familiar things around you, just drives you crazy.

Anyway, this is a horrible movie. Like one of those movies they make movies about- you know, once-you-watch it-you're-cursed sort of movie. At least for a week. Brr....

So don't watch paranormal activity. Don't.

When your phone falls down the storm drain.

My phone pouch, the green shiny one which contains both my phones and my EZ link bus pass, had an adventure today.

There is a roaring storm drain, fashioned open air and moat-like around the the HDB blocks where I live. The only things missing are crocodiles and a drawbridge.

It was 8 am. I was on the opposite side of the moat. On the road ahead, I see my bus throttling down to its stop. The patron saint of the pedestrian crossing, the 'flashing green man' is about to turn red. Panic.
I break into a run.
I trip.
I dont fall. The shiny green pouch does. It flies in fact. Out of my hands and into the roaring storm drain.

You know those enormous drains. There's no water in them. Just damp and wide open, always expecting the after-rain deluge, which only lasts for about 45 minutes anyway.

So the pouch wasn't exactly swept away.
and it was just lying there

6 feet below

and I couldn't do anything about it

Because the ladders and stairs had been removed last week.
Because a boy in Bukit Panjang had thought it would be fun to go down those ladders
And then it had started to pour. And the drain had started to fill. And the boy was no where to be found.
(they found him later. unharmed. but the ladders had to go)

and so

I went to the police

who had no idea

what to do

so they called the town council

who directed them to the land transport authority

who directed them

to the Public Utilities Board

The Public Utilities Board
decided not to do anything for 2 whole hours

and I couldnt call work because i had no phone and I didnt dare ask the police if I could phone my boss.
so i just sat there

looking distressed

for two whole hours

The PUB kept saying

wait wait wait

and finally they sent a man

with a ROPE

who just tied himself to the rail

went down the drain

climbed back up

and handed me my pouch

the whole thing took all of 3 minutes

I almost cried.