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.

Never before has a movie captured the reality of what America stands for today. If we ever wanted a final closure to the debate on Art imitating life or life imitating Art - This was it folks. Art imitates life and life in America sucks.

After two seasons of music, some amazing performances, some amazing personalities, I have found my closure with the show - American Idol. Despite all the hope I nurtured, the love I gave and shared, l today have been betrayed. Betrayed by the illusions of truth, fair play and a greater good for all.

There is no American dream. It has lost it's arms and legs just like Anakin Skywalker did. It has been reduced to just one spirit -that of power fueled by greed and anger. The melting pot of wannabes has thrown up yet another Sith Lord in Carrie Underwood, the champion of America's despotic and self centered spirit. Simon Cowell has found his apprentice and he has thanked America for 'finally listening to him'.

What happened today was a shame, a travesty and no, I will not be a good loser for the good loser won!

Bo Bice:
You are the most amazing, refreshing, talented and spirited performer I have ever seen. You have given me countless moments of pure joy and gratitude for the spirit of human kind. You will always be my Idol. You will always have my vote.
I thank you for the songs, the music, the smile, the outfits, the shades, the suits and the hats. Most of all I thank you for sharing your spirit. I am so glad you did take your mother up on that bet.
I am counting on what you said the other night: I will stay out the longest to hear you, even if I am the only one left.
Thank you.

Five minutes, out of the cinema hall, I learnt that there aren't three movies but six in the series. AH! Next I heard of Harrison Ford playing Luke Skywalker and something inside my head said 'AH' for the second time.
So in case you're ready to share the finer points of the STAR WARS phenomenon with me on this post, I apologize in advance. For I am indeed a fledgling in my understanding of the series.

What I did see last night is the final episode which really is the start of the STAR WAR series - so Lucas managed to do what computer programmers call an 'infinite loop'. You're going to come out of this 'final' episode and dive right into the original series 1 - 2 and 3: At which point, you will want to go back further, some time far far ago...and again and again you will wash, spin and tumble dry (no less) in the glory that is STAR WARS.

It isn't a bad deal either.

Not many women are into STAR WARS, I know I wasn't as a kid. My brother was - something about this natural affinity to machine and machine parts - has always puzzled me. I HAD heard of Harrison Ford playing Luke Skywalker but I only remember him playing Indiana Jones. Why, pray tell, do young boys yearn for tool sets while young girls can only think of love, romance and oozing charm (I am thinking of Indiana Jones). Maybe at that time, young girls were very much still looking to be protected and swept off our feet, even if it was clinging desperately to a man whose chief accomplishment was his practiced art of swinging from branch to branch on ropes (I am thinking of Tarzan here). I wonder if young girls of today understand that as their idea of romance.

Even today, I am not a fan of machinery. I like to figure it out and then let it do what it's built to do. I haven't really fallen in love with the idea of machines -- something that I have felt at times and know to be a powerful, heady feeling. Boys know that feeling. They are in love with their machines and more importantly the idea of a machine. That if you wire things up correctly, you can get inanimate, solid substances to work together and DO something for you. Little wonder then that when they turn around and apply the same 'rules' of love to women, it doesn't work.

I have felt on occasion that love for machines. To be able to concentrate, try, fail, try again and finally "GET" it to work -- there is nothing like that feeling even if all you really did was replace a light bulb. Why do women shirk away from this kind of romance, pray tell. I know everytime a light bulb goes POP or SPAT, I look up into my husband's eyes and bat my eyelashes so... you get my drift, right?

What is it about 'fixing' things that women don't get? Do we like living in environs of chaos? Do we enjoy playing with the many buttons on the home theatre/sound theatre/ whatever theatre that is - all we really want to do is listen to a song! Why do tools like the screwdriver (no, not a conducive name, you got to admit, for our feline ears) or a hammer (again, am I just being a tad sensitive to the terms or what???) get us to surrender all intellect and fun in lieu for extra time in the kitchen cooking up treats to celebrate the real 'man' in the house?

I woke up this morning and set off for my run with my head full of Anakin Skywalker and Kobi Van Kanobi (I know I spelt that wrong!). I thought of Padume (I mean really, do I really have to hear another western take on an Indian sounding name - ( Reference: I've been listening to Lakme, the opera - with Neelkanta, Dourga (the french spelling of Durga - NOT!) etc...) My favorite part in the movie was to do with the starting scene...and also the fight scene between the general jedi and Darth Vader -- where despite all odds, he does triumph over Darth Vader. I loved it all. My favorite line in the film is when Kanobi says 'Only the Sith talk in absolutes' as it finally dawns on him that Anakin has become one with the dark side.

This final episode (and I am not sure if it's intentional) does really find a third voice in today's reality. While some may call it more 'political', I think it works on the concept of the circle. We are constantly moving from one end to the other in our grapple with what we call our lives. One day, we're in a wonderful loving relationship, the next we're lost to the lure of power that can help us sustain the relationship at the risk of annihilating every little bit of love that took to build it in the first place. Anakin and his bride's story is sad. The anger that it fuels in him becomes Darth Vader. The expression in his bride's face when she is dying and knows it will always remain with me.

Which brings me to the question of destiny. In the movie, Anakin dreams of his wife dying at childbirth. She does end up dying at childbirth. Was it destiny? I know there are a lot of people out there who believe very strongly on destiny. I am not one of them. I believe that it's a path of consciousness, to move from a state of being controlled and pre-planned to a state of acceptance and flexibility that comes with a deeper wisdom.... Like captured in this movie, where as a Jedi you are encouraged to use your emotions to tap into your deeper wisdom -- while as a Sith, you are encouraged to use your emotions to drive your actions.

No experience of this film will be complete without due credit to the effects, the sounds and the mind boggling battle scenes. The dragon as a vehicle was quite a nice touch. The end of Count Dooku was sad considering his own master would orchestrate his death. The look in his eyes as he looked at his Master and the comprehension that came seconds after was priceless.

I could go on and on about this movie - I doubt it's going to go away from my mind any time soon. I am pretty much up to watching it again and again on the big screen.
On that note, may the force be with us all.