Mansi

If this wasn't such a sad story, I would have probably written about it sooner. Looking back though, not only was this a sad story but it also took something as liberating as 'running' and likened it to a cheap philosophical analogy.
Life is considered a run, both from and towards things that we either want/hate or are expected to attain/give up. (No grand Eureka moments there). Up on stage are two male runners, training for the Mumbai marathon. The entire play shows the two of them running. While one of them is quite certain this is what must be done, the other brings in the oh so philosophical aspect of questioning. So in short, the play is a Q&A session with questions not just about the running but about different incidents in the pasts of the runners.
Aside one: Another problem with this philosophy that is too mental for my digestion is the assumption that there is a past that we are coming from. That each moment we live in today was born from something we did in the past. The theory of randomness has no chance in this particular paradigm.
Aside Two: hold on - I got to pull up my Miss Saigon song - Why, God Why : Allright half an hour later, I learn (shockingly) that I don't have a Miss Saigon CD but thanks to some mercy, I still have my tape.

Why does Saigon never sleep at night? Why does this girl smell of orange trees? How can I feel good when nothing's right? Why is she cool when there is no breeze? Vietnam, you don't give answers to your friend - Just questions that don't ever end.
Why God? Why today? I'm all through here, on my way. There's nothing left here that I'll miss, why send me now a night like this?

In case you haven't clued in to what I meant by the philosophy of questioning, I hope the lyrics above has tuned you in - Now, we can continue.

One interesting conversation that I related to in this play was when one of the runners wishes that he could go back into his past and punch certain individuals in the face. I remember hearing that and mentally starting my list. I have a life full of moments when I believe I didn't express myself the way I wanted to. Social relationships were hard for me and like an opera singer, I was happier doing my soliloquays and asides, almost like I was always aware of a larger audience to the experience of my life. Except sadly that also meant ignoring or not completly fulfilling that moment with the other actors. I certainly don't intend to bash anybody up but perhaps say things I might have not then. I was also quite slow. Often days after a conversation had occured, my understanding of what I really wanted to say would take birth - except it was too late.

Other conversations, akin to femal bashing, had me laughing at the absurdities of sexual paradigms. Strangely enough, I was part of the minority actually laughing. I think by and large, the audience, was either not amused or relieved that somebody would actually put women in their 'place'. I also think everybody was just not ready for such humor or the sad improvisation of which. Perhaps Delhi audiences are far more repressed than they believe. Another part of me however noticed that the audience was rather old. Then, perhaps, they didn't understand why men felt a need to cheapen, talk down the women in their lives and refer to them as conquests or failures. Such SITH behavior is rather childish too.

Another aspect, that I learnt later was not appreciated by the original playwright, was the excessive swearing. I felt that it did not compliment the mental exercise of the plot. We don't swear in the deep recesses of our thoughts. We swear on the boundaries of our actions. So perhaps here I can agree with the playwright.

The plot is around the suicide of one man, who perhaps for the first time in his life, made a definitive, irreversable decision that once and for all put him ahead of the competition and perhaps unaware in his mind, ahead of the realms of human boundaries. In that aspect, this play doesn't really respect the boundaries of life (such is the limitations of obsessive thought). The narrative is from someone who we don't know. He or she is never in front of the camera. He instead stages (quite meticulously) the story of our two runners - who physically distinct are probably two parts of his self. Hence the story is about the struggle between the part of us that knows and that part which really just questions. There is a distinction between societal ideals and human failing. There is an interplay of that which will endure and as one of the runner puts 'suffer' and that which only wishes to stop.

As much as I regret the analogy of running used to reflect the journey of this plot, in some aspects, the mystery of running is touched upon. The first minutes, one of the runner points out, are always the hardest. How true that is. Each morning that I start my run, getting past the first park is the most trecherous of them all. Beyond that though, running is not about destination, it never has been for me. Strangely that fits in nicely with my life principles too. Life is not about milestones, but living. Running helped me break free from the clutches of my mind. For that, I will always be grateful. However, as wonderful as that is, it is only in going back to it, day after day, that I can choose to experience that feeling. I haven't gone for my run in the past four days. Four days of tortured thought, four days of mindful binges, four days of conscious ignorance, four days of sporadic emotions.

Not all journeys need end like that of the play we watched. There is far more living left in each of us that need not always juggle an ideal with a failing. Running is about enduring and in life, that is, I believe the equivalent of accepting. Something the script we witnessed missed out on altogether.

Performance wise: I think the challenge of doing a play in motion caught the attention of Vikram Kapadia and Satyajit Sharma. It is different. It has a quality of timelessness that I am afraid this adaptation sourly misses out on. While I believed that the performances and the sounds were precise and wonderfully rehearsed, I believe the adaptation of the script, was lacking. We got to chat for a bit with Satyajit Sharma after the play - who I must report back was refeshing. He had no airs about his work or stature. He accepted praise with child like delight, no matter, where it came from. He engaged us with information on Prithvi theatre and cinema. He spoke of where they will go with this play. He even got Vikram Kapadia to take in our appreciation of the play; however the latter was not amused or even receptive. He wanted something that we didn't have. He said things that we didn't really want to listen to. There we were a part of the audience, not really as well-rehearsed with our thoughts or our appreciation and it didn't go too well with the director. There were moments when I thought, Priya, say something important, on cue to a larger realization that the important stuff would, as usual, come only days later.

It is such thought driven exercises that I believe deludes us from the simple, real moments in our lives. What are we, without our thoughts? What we have amassed as many different cultures spread across the globe, why can't we then celebrate this pot of what reality can look like? Sadly, such theatre leaves me empty. As appreciative as I am of performances and choice of play, theatre is not a celebration of our thoughts. Theatre needs to be a celebration of life, of living, of enduring, of running.