The Importance of Being Ear-nested.

One week into the new year, and the only thing that seems blogworthy to me this week is the latest fashion fad in Chennai that is catching on like a forest on fire.

Earmuffs.

Shylock: merchant or menace? (A Christmas Pantomime) – a review

There are, in my opinion, two types of children who get up onto stage to perform. The first kind are the ones who have not a clue whatsoever of why in God’s name they’re on stage in the first place, and don’t understand the symbolism of the curtain going up on them. In most cases, they stand fixated in stagefright at the number of eyes focussed on them, their choreographers/directors performing tribal dances of hair-pulling or hoarse-whisper-prompting in the wings, while seconds pass by disguised as eternities.

The other sort, are the ones who were born to love the limelight. They just can’t get enough of it. They couldn’t care if there were 10, 100, maybe 1000 people in the audience. It’s almost as though they’re intrisically aware of the fact that nobody would ever laugh at them or boo them off stage, because they’re just too adorable to do that.

What these two categories have in common, is that as long as they are children, they could never ‘act’. Not even if they were taught to gesture in the right way while they learnt their lines well. I’m not being biased here, but truthfully, children are precisely that – children. They are at that time of their lives where the innocence, the naivete, is completely manifest in what they do or say. So, when you put up a child on stage and make him/her ‘act’, they’d just say their lines and move themselves about, while experimenting with stage space the first few times, ‘learning the ropes’ as it were. And that’s precisely what makes them so adorable to watch.

So how do you write a review for the Xmas Panto? You can’t actually. And that’s why I can’t be critical about the way the kids danced, or said their lines, or wore their clothes. I only wish they didn’t use those microphones in Museum theatre, it being, accoustically, one of the best in Chennai. I had to peice the story together when every once in a while I caught snippets of the it in the madness of echoes and reverberation. The music drowned the singing at times. But the characters were endearing, and some of the jokes truly funny. And yes, Shylock’s oversized paunch made me feel very slim indeed.

All in all, completely worth the money (especially since tickets are going at Rs. 100 and Rs. 50). If you’re in Chennai and have kids who’re feeling bored (or are rather young at heart yourself), you should definitely not miss the panto.

This is It – a review

A few weeks ago, I found the ‘OFFICIAL’ F*R*I*E*N*D*S collection at a Landmark sale. At 300 bucks, this hardbound collection of photographs and interviews of the people behind pop culture’s biggest headlines was a steal, to say the least. Being the ‘OFFICIAL’ collection, it made me – a die hard fan – proud to own it. And why not? Behind-the-scenes juice is always welcome. Keen on knowing the little nitty-gritties of being a part of the F*R*I*E*N*D*S cast and crew, I settled down with the book the very same day that I bought it. Sadly, I couldn’t take it beyond the 3rd interview, simply because I got tired of reading how lovely the cast was and how simply great the entire experience turned out to be. Everybody interviewed had the same thing to say, in a million different ways. Ultimately, it all seemed too good to be true (however much I’d like to believe it was all rosy when they made my favorite sitcom). From then on, I made a mental note not to take coffee table reading seriously.

Up until this morning, I was wary of watching This is It for the very same reason. If this was going to be a bunch of clippings of people fawning over MJ and how great he was and how smooth his dance moves were, I wasn’t planning to stick around to watch it.

Swami and Friends – a review

“This is where it all began, at the banks of the River Sarayu”, said Mani as the lights blanked out over him immediately and the audience burst into thunderous applause.

November 5th and 6th saw the return of Swami and Friends to Sivagami Petachi , where it ran to packed houses (yet again, I’m told) in spite of the incessantly heavy Chennai rains. I had missed it the first time around, and some of the mixed reviews I’d heard piqued my curiosity enough to go watch it…. even if it was on a weekday.

Sleepless in the Studio

As I walked into the MRTS station at Kottupuram this morning, I noticed something I wasn’t used to seeing on a daily basis there. An old man lay sprawled on the floor, bare-chested. He was homeless, yes. Drunk, maybe. He lay there beneath the giant staircase leading to the overhead rail. Under his head he had a small bundle of clothes that he used as a makeshift pillow, with his slippers placed by his side.

Looking at those slippers, I couldn’t but help notice the familiarity of the scene to something I was accustomed to not too many months back.

Flip a page, pick a chick!

A few weeks ago, when Namz & Samz were in Chennai for a few days, we decided to meet at breakfast the day they were to leave for Singapore. But what had started out as breakfast, went on to be a fun day out with fun people doing fun things.

One of our fun escapades took us to the Landmark store at Spencers Plaza. This was after having scouted around the mall looking for a particular silver jewellery shop that was unfortunately closed that Sunday afternoon. It was 2pm, and we thought we’d quickly step in and out of Landmark for Namz to pick up some reading material for the flight, before we headed out for lunch.

As soon as we walked into Landmark, Samz headed out to look up the choicest of Archie comics to take back home to his collection, before which he would mull over the fate of Jughead’s love life while flipping through its pages on the flight back home.

Namz and I turned to the Indian Writers section and busied ourselves looking for a good read apart from keeping an eye out for Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City.

That was when I saw him as he walked past us. The ‘Dude’.

How to Drop Off the Face of the Earth

Man has always been a social animal. Today, however, man is more of a social virtual cookie monster (pun intended). We live in times dictated by our social networks, and wherever we go, whether online or offline, we’re followed by the manifestations of our histories and geographies in cyberspace.

So how do you escape it? Do you escape it? Well, that is entirely upto you, but in case you were thinking of it, here’s a quick step-by-step guide:

If the shoe fits… fling it!

The pen.

Sigh.

It used to be mightier than the sword.

Random Ramble

If there is something that the last 20 odd years have taught me, it’s that everybody wants their comfort zone in life. And that few are willing to step out of it to get what they want. Pretty much like having your cake and eating it too. Speaking of cake, I just realized I haven’t completely enjoyed cake in a long time without having guilt pangs mount at the back of my head. Sigh.

Till Death Do Us Part…

It appears that some people literally do live and die in the public eye.

Jade Goody probably wanted a shortcut to fame when she appeared on the British reality show Big Brother in 2002. Well, isn’t that what people want from starring in a reality show? Only her string of TV appearances made her more infamous than famous, as she probably defined being a ‘badass’ as a means to make a living. Well, a lot of reality stars have done that, I guess. Remember Omarosa, of The Apprentice fame?