A day in the life of LIFE

I could well have cltr C’ed and cltr V’ed the previous post into this one but for the fact that the airline this time around was Kingfisher and the dates were two weeks post the last trip. But yes, I am back in Mumbai on work in less than a fortnight and that’s a surprise to me as well, since my last consecutive visits to this city spanned an interval of a good four years.

I am not complaining, and Bombay, if I may call it, has always remained special since I spent my childhood here.

This visit got with it the chance to catch up with good old DK from school whose comments you generally find peppered around the blog. It had been a long 7.5 years and I was as eager to meet him as Ganguly was to get his first 50 post his cricket “vanvas”.

DK mentioned about VB who was acting in a play[more on that later in the post] and what more than a city like Mumbai and a comedy play, for three school friends to meet up and discuss how the world has transformed while they got busy with their chosen paths in life.

Me and DK planned to meet up for this play titled “When the pythons followed the actors” - an adaptation of a plot by the British Comedy troupe “Monty Python”. Staged at Rang Sharada Auditorium in Bandra (W), the play promised to be a nice refresher but the prime motivation to watch the play was that VB happened to be part of the production. Also, it was about time I caught up with the stage world for two main reasons - The last live play I watched was “Snow White and the seven dwarfs” when I was a toddler in class 1 and being a stage artist myself, theatre was something I always longed to witness.

I managed to wade through the snail paced Mumbai traffic in an auto rickshaw that moved as fast as a file in a government department and eventually completed the journey in slightly less than an hour. DK as usual was delayed and reached after I did. 7.5 years had made him heftier, meaner and boy, has he done away with those giant sized spectacles. The tickets were picked up by DK which included one for another colleague of his and he modestly declined re-imbursement considering the fact that he works for an MNC which encourages employees treating school buddies from other cities. I however made it clear I would not be available in Delhi the next time DK comes visiting. The least I could do was sponsor tea for the three of us and we suddenly realized we were sipping away at tea costing 20 bucks for 100 ml. like aristocratic princes of the British Raj.

The main plot of the play revolved around a stage artist who has the worst nightmare of his lifetime in that he has forgotten his lines right when the play is supposed to begin and is looking for cues from all possible sources to salvage the situation.

The sets best describe the way our protagonist is transported from one play to another almost like a striker across the carom board, and while the rest of his troupe know what exactly his role play is, he seems to suffer from amnesia.

The dialogues well reflect the mood of the moment, with most of the setting in erstwhile medieval Europe, and London being the frame of reference. The choice of characters is quite good and the fresh blood does bring in the much required agility which many scenes demand. The accents range from the stiff upper lipped Queen’s language to the typical French English with the Zi fer zhevry senor. The hero maintains a neutral English accent akin to “Ali” of Pakistani origin in the famed series “Mind your Language”.

The team which calls themselves Version One dot Oh! has its roots in Bangalore and is a mix of about 10 actors spanning the software industry, students and a couple of full time professionals.

I shall not dwell into the specifics of the plot lest I contribute to the lack of audience for their next performance. They may not have conformed to all the rules of “Bharat Muni’s ” “Natya Shastra” [Bharat Muni was the father of traditional Sanskrit Dramas and had laid down stage rules] but, for a group that is just three years young and performs to packed audiences in Bangalore, which also doubles up as one of the prime fund contributors to a local NGO, this was quite a remarkable effort.

Good show guys. Keep it up.

A couple of pics of the team, plus the three musketeers in front of the audi.