Theatre...

NSD Rangmahotsav brings back lot of cherished memories of my time spent in NSD…after a long time my parents and I were on a Theatre Marathon!! Watching plays back to back after office and during weekends…plays by legendary directors like Arun Mukhopadhyaya, Soumitra Chatterjee, M.S.Sathyu and the next generation directors. Stories range from typical gossip like extra- maritals to understanding the political conflict of Israel through a schizophrenic and then the folk inspired scripts, a diverse range of subjects that kindle different sides of you as a human.

I was almost in tears while I was seeing Soumitra Chatterjee perform…ohhhh!!! How handsome he still is. I remembered the Feluda film in which he was the protagonist. His stage presence and the acting of the group undermined the clichéd storyline of a writer in love with his wife and her sister.

I am lucky to be in Delhi as this is one of the few cities that offer so much more to theatre lovers! If you have not watched any of it, then I feel sad but yeah, you should definitely catch it next year…its worth the effort!

My 1st para for HT first para contest :)

Ok..so HT recently had this first para contest and they gave the first line: It wasn't a dark and stormy night but quite the opposite actually.
Now the following is my first para to the first line provided by them...may be a start to a novel or a short story..I dunno... :)

It wasn't a dark and stormy night but quite the opposite actually. It was a bright Sunday morning and little Meena was shooed away from the swing by other girls. Why other girls don't play with me? Why can't I have a nice frock, doll, pink shoes and neatly combed hair? …she wondered as she enviously looked at them. Hiding behind the Neem tree, bits of food she collected from the garbage lay on her dirty scarf. She saw girls play, throw tantrums and lick ice-creams…"Yummy, wish I could have one in this scorching heat!" stroking a puppy-- Jaggu, her only friend.

Jaggu ran to bring back a fallen ice-cream stick for her…"Oh! Only you love me, come let's share it." Merrily they play along when someone is coming near her…she has seen her, but where? She is tall, fat with bushy eyebrows with round red eyes and draped in a black cloak.

"Jaggu let's run, or...