don't know what to say

It's straight out of a movie...one that's scripted to perfection...one that's been directed and executed brilliantly...just the one movie that killed everything cinema, and the freedom of 'expression' stood for. The terror strike on the city of Mumbai, on the heart and soul of the city that I derive everything from...I don't know what it's done to me. I've walked around in my house aimlessly...without any feeling of what I'm doing....it's...worse than sickening...its worse than any nightmares I've woken up with, panting and sweating and out of breath. Yes...I feel the air changing...around 30-40 kilometeres far away from the site of the attacks, and yet, I feel it in the air...in the environment.

It's easy to say we had it coming...it's easy to say we'll bounce back...but...how...just HOW the HELL did it happen? how did some random guys with GUNS come into a crowded railway terminus and shoot hapazardly? ...THE TAJ Mahal HOTEL---the entire city, especially people in the suburbs who go to town for work, have this deal with Fate, with Destiny, with their friends on Gateway too...Let me Earn enough to give you guys a superb dinner at the TAJ...what's going to happen to their dreams now?

The OBEROI--right next to the NCPA...the theatre of dreams, the place me, and my fellow thespians make our Home for the month of December...our festival Thespo, scheduled to have its 2 days on the 13th and 14th...and...we see this happen right next door...heartbreaking was an understatement.

Whoever these bastards are...they did it alright...they shook us up...they waited, and waited...they ate their meals, they sat in their positions, they waited and watched, and then attacked every round of commandos we sent in...this is just perfect. I don't mean to blame it on complacency...but 3 locations, where hostage-count, and shaheeds(people killed on duty) go on similar terms, and we find terrorists dead, or captured, in each location, less than 5...it's just...insane.

The idea that everyone I knew was safe, became secondary for the very first time that such a crisis has hit us...the places that were attacked...I've been there for the last 4-5 years almost on a daily basis...they say a name, and i see the picture in my head, before it's flashed on the television set...and all I can think of is...WHY THE HELL AM I HOME WATCHING THIS?....what could I have done? why wasn't I there? ...I am ESSENTIALLY and PRACTICALLY a scaredy-cat....and yet, I felt terrible for being away from it...when those wretched brutes were killing those hostages, and firing rounds at our soldiers.

I don't know why I'm posting this...I don't know how it helps...I know this blog was meant for me totalk theatre with you...but this is one time, when I don't stand by the line: The Show Must Go On....no...we can't have a show when people come in and point a gun at you and tell you to evacuate a theatre, or drop the curtain, and blackout an auditorium. THat's exactly what it feels like. You're caught inside an auditorium...the audience is at gunpoint, as is the cast, and crew...you can't do a thing...can't call up and let the world know...and they're gona hold you...hold tyou till this one army guy or police guy comes in and faces him and either dies from his bullet or kills him with one of his own...and for this....that's how this post came about...I dont' care about Pak's involvement, I don't care about what everyone thinks...I just know that this is an eerie image of the city, and that I'm sure that it isn't over...there's probably more to come...3 top cops killed in one night...will lead to a lot of repurcussions, among other things.

I still, still...for some stupid hopeless reason wish I could be pinched and can wake up from this NIGHTMARE and I'd still be doing Thespo work on wednesday evening, with nothing but the Festival to worry about.

22nd Birthday Memories

Once again, thanks to everybody who wished me on my birthday...* whoopee 22...no big deal, of course...just older, not wiser, still very much the same me*

Now...the big secret...not exactly, but the question on everyone's mind, since I didn't run riot with it...what did I exactly do on the night of my birthday.

Exterior: Prithvi House, Opp. Prithvi Theatre, Juhu.
A boy in his early 20's enters the frame, he's seen leaving the house. He looks towards the camera to his left, when...
cut to:
A rickshaw stops at Prithvi. Two young men get out, and pay the fare, they turn towards the theatre, when...

D: " Abbey P, J, what're you doing here? "
J: " Oh no, Yeh Dekh kaun ( Look who's here...as usual)..!"

The three of them enter Prithvi Theatre's cafe.
P: " Met T ? He'sinside! "

And they sit at a table with a fourth young man, T .Fade out on Prithvi's Cafe.
The Beginning.

And then it Rained, and rained, and some more...then it stopped, then it Poured even more.

And so, since it was raining so much, I spent most of the evening, then most of the same night, at that same table, at that same corner of the same cafe of the same Prithvi Theatre.

Sounds like the most boring story on the planet, but of course a young boy turning 22, a young, aspiring actor/writer, who thinks Theatre is more than just life and blood...well it wasn't really that boring for him....what do you think?

Excel-lent films

Guess what... I'm diverting...finally...away from my favourite topic- (Me, and my Theatre exploits ):P

I'd like to take a moment and talk about a certain film company, that's been making a certain brand of films, that stand out, not just because of their original ideas, but in the style that they seem to exude, as soon as you see them on screen. I am of course, talking about my favourite Indian filmmaker, Farhan Akhtar, and his company: Excel Entertainment which he began in 2001 , with his producer/friend Ritesh Sidhwani.

Dil Chahta Hai..just these three words bring images, bring shankar-ehsaan-loy's most melodious album, to your head, and every one who's seen this movie even once on seeing the three words I've written... feels like calling up their friends (perhaps considers a trip to Goa :P) among other things. Male bonding, at its finest, urban dosti in its best.

Lakshya...Javed saab, back to what he did best: Screenplays... a journey of a man from what I believe im going through myself just now (Main Aisa Kyun Hun)...to being a proud and patriotic soldier, able to get his Goal in life. Apart from being techincally Farhan's best film, I think the story could have easily been one of the most emotionally poignant ones, ever written... of course high expectations from the audience, for a DCH part 2, made the film flop badly, didn't it? I still have high regard for Farhan's most difficult-to-make movie, and Hrithik's best performance, ever...NO he wasn't that great in KRISSSHH *

DON...The Chase began...my chase ended soon...it was one of the movies I personally wished Farhan hadn't made... it had Excel's style, Excel's class, Farhan's touch, but...i don't know what it was about it, that made me feel, he's gone on a different tangent. Maybe i felt it was a bit too commercial, even in his commercial entertainers, for the people, genre, that I feel Farhan excelled in.

Honeymoon Travels: Not a Farhan film, per se...very light-hearted, very fun to watch, an amazing ensemble of actors, playing an array of interesting characters. Of Course Farhan can't let go of Goa, can he....* i don't tink I can either since i Came back a month earlier*

And now...Rock On...the story seems to be Anurag Kashyap's Paanch, made simpler, and nicer,...the story seems to be Dil Chahta Hain with a Rock Band instead of a college trio....thats what the media keeps tellign us. Farhan's not directing....he's Acting...he's SINGING (and not bad at that )...Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, at their best in home turf, in Excel, .... can't get the songs outa my head... and somehow... with all the build-up, all the negativity, all these ideas that a rock film won't work out here... that its not Farhan directing...still.. I know im expecting a lot from this movie....debut director, still.. its got Farhan's touch to it. I mean, fine, it might not be a major Rock Fan's story, it might not be the film that rockers really flock to...but who cares... its' Excel... its the place where ideas like Dil Chahta Hai was born...it's still a cult favourite...it changed the way movies were made in India... something's gotta give, ain't it?

Next Week: No clue man...im home for the entire week... GIMME A JOB, people! :)

Nope...it's not..nothing like it used to be...not the least bit.
It's just painful, how excruciatingly difficult it has become for me to string words together in a sentence, that not only makes sense to me, but looks like something staring out of a paper to my eyes, and thus manages to create an image of what the sentence talks about, in my mind's inner eye, thus projecting a sentence, that MAKES SENSE. I used to be quite alright with stringing these multiple sentences together, use a few connecting words here and there, a few punctuations, a few spaces, and manage to convey a story, filled with characters, plot, lies, deceit, and any other masala (spice) that might be useful to get that concept into my readers' *Myself*, mind...with ease.

Whatever happened to the Divyesh of the old...*yes that's me*..:P

Where am I, where have I gone...when will I ever return?

Laziness is just the tip of the iceberg..I believe a part of my fingers has rubbed on some sort of magical powder, that's not allowing me to be as free-flowing as before.

Or maybe I'm just imagining things, I need to probably sleep on the right side of my bed for a change.

No one knows.

Script ideas to be converted to screenplay outlines...a huge concept for a full-length play to be written, and made into a do-able script...I have my hands full... and yet, every day seems like the same old mun-day-ne.
Hmmm...I did manage to string the above words together...hmm..*thinks hard*....perhaps I'm not quite out of it yet.

Next post, then. :)

Thespo 9

Somehow, it never seems to leave us... Seems just yesterday that I posting about my Thespo 8 experiences. Anyhow, a year's passed, a Lot of water under the Lechayim bridge, and now, we're back.

Yes, proudly enough, Lechayim is represented at this year's edition of the THEATRE GROUP, QTP Youth Theatre Festival THESPO, again.

YUVA Thespo 9, from the 13th to the 16th of December 2007.

This time around, Siddharth Kumar, who played Ariel, in Confessions directs ' Damages' on the 15th of December.

It's a play about the workings of a newspaper office, and how everything gets disrupted when a controversial photograph of a supposedly sacred public figure is sent to their workplace, and how a story of office politics, and tabloid-bashing takes a new lease of life. A bunch of fresh faces, along with Lechayim buddies, makes up the cast of this verbose and intense play. Hope to see a lot more audience than we got last year at Confessions ( no mere feat, considering we had a full house, on a Weekday, that too) :) Enough show-sha now.

Damages
15th of December 2007
Cast: Ali Fazal, Nimrat Kaur, Kashin Shetty, Himanshu Sitlani
Running Time: 1 Hour 50 Min. With Interval



The Thespo festival isn't just about lechayim of course.

Here's a low down of all the events scheduled for Yuva Thespo 9


13th Dec 07 -Thursday
2 pm Workshop: Puppet Power : The language of the inanimateDadi Pudumjee and Ramdas PadhyePresented by Jindal Arts Centre in association with Ishara Puppet Theatre and Ramdas Padhye Foundation
6:30 pm Platform Performance: Who Stole the Potato from my Chip? (English)
7 pm Play: "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"(English)
You are cordially invited to George and Martha's for an evening of fun and games

14th Dec 07 - Friday
2 pm Workshop: Abhineta ka Sangeet - Ajay Kumar
6:30 pm Platform Performance:Andher Billat Aahe ( Marathi)
7 pm Play: "Aayushyamaan" (Marathi)
Only when you look death in the face, can you appreciate how beautiful life is.

15th Dec 07- Saturday
2 pm Workshop:Shakespeare is Alive and Kicking - Alyque Padamsee
6:30 pm Platform Performance: Gag (English)
7 pm Play: "Damages" (English)

STOP PRESS!! A scandalous photo has landed on the editor's desk.

Who has sent it?Why?

16th Dec 07 - Sunday
2 pm Workshop:Aesthetics of Social Theatre - Saumya Joshi
6:30 pm Platform Performance:Roshni Mein Jite Hue Log (Hindi)
7 pm Play: "Saari Raat" (Hindi)
A lonely house, a married couple and secrets that only strangers can reveal.

Please Note:
Plays are at the NCPA Experimental theatre at 7 pm.
Each play is preceded by a short performance at 6.30 pm.
Workshops to be held at Tata Rehearsal Room (Except 'Puppet Power' to be held at Little Theatre).
For tickets and workshop registrations please contact Reema on 98204 53015 or thespo@gmail.com.
Schedule subject to change.
Ticket Costs - For adults Rs. 100/- & for students Rs. 50/-

COME, BE A PART OF INDIA"s YOUTH THEATRE MOVEMENT.... YUVA THESPO!

On to better things..or worse

Somehow Confessions never seems to leave us.. me and my production manager and co-actor Himanshu constantly mouth lines from the play as if its a normal language.. but thats how theatre engulfs your life, and encompasses every little detail of it...

On to better things now.... am a graduate (hopefully, once results declare me so..), and i need to move away from the fabled art form, and move on into the corporate world, which i despise with all its might... but which i need to embrace, only to earn a living in this dark universe i am a part of.

Confessions rocked Part 2

Sorry this one took so long in coming.. ( im done with graduation exams.. am jobless.. of course i'll blog NOW !!

I think i'm tired of mentioning the details of our bombay show.. Ask people aroudn who've attended Thespo , about the opening night, on the 13th of December 2006, when Confessions rocked the stage... they'll tell you All about it... ( just coz im jobless doesn't mean im suddenly going to be wealthy with my words..)

'CONFESSIONS' Rocked. Part I

Bangalore:

1st of December 2006.

Confessions, staged at the Ranga Shankara Auditorium in Bangalore.

7.30 p.m.


As the lights dimmed on the audience, and the first lines were spoken, I was suddenly gripped by the fact that, so, it starts...

Its been a very long journey. A journey starting from a friend's drawing room, where our first reading happened, to constant rehearsals at my director's place, to the dreaded audition at the Tata Rehearsal Room, to our selection ,and tighter rehearsals, and then, finally the trip to Bangalore city and the night before.

Finally, I realised, that every bit of me, was itching to get on to that stage, and start making the character my own.

I had time before my first lines were uttered, ( which were actually screams from backstage), but I wanted the play to move faster so that I can have my say soon. When my time came, I erupted into my aforesaid screams, later having to hold on to the wings to catch my breath. But... I felt, hmm, the audience knows I'm around... this is what I've come here for...

Soon it was time for my scene, and the moment i Stepped up on stage, and into the light, i knew I'd arrived. I knew that this is what was missing from my life over the past 20 years which had always left a void, an emptiness within me, that i couldn't really place. I knew it was my destiny now... and I just went ahead with it...

The play ended on a high, as everything went well, enough,( we did have a few fuckups, but, that wasnt noticeable to the audience, and we knew we'd fix it by the time the Bombay show happend.) The curtain call at the end, when we saw everybody get up for a standing ovation, still is a vivid memory. The applause still rings in my ears sometimes.

The Bangalore show was the very first time I stepped up on stage in front of an audience. It's time like this that makes me wonder what great feats i've done in my past life, to have got this much adulation...( once a Hindu, always a Hindu!).

DREAM COME TRUE

THESPO 2006 is here. The plays have been shortlisted.
Ends and Beginnings, Retellings, Baby, With a Little Help from my Friends.

There is one more in this lineup. A play about a lot of things. But most importantly, it is a play.. about US.. about Me.

I AM ACTING IN 'Confessions' - one of the plays shortlisted for Thespo this year. We're taking the play to bangalore for the first half of the festival, which runs from the 28th of Nov to the 4th of Dec. at the Ranga Shankara Auditorium in Bangalore.

Thespo Bombay will happen from the 13th to the 17th of Dec at the NCPA Experimental, at Nariman Point.

Confessions will be staged in Bombay on the 13th of december, to open the festival.

I request anybody who's reading this blog, to attend either of the above mentioned shows, and give a boost to us youth thespians.

Lechayim.!