Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival - Day 2 - Awsome!!

Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival started here at Hyderabad this Monday Oct 26, 2009. It has an interesting line up of Hindi, English, Marathi, Telugu and even German performances. Just attended the second play of the festival today and was completely bowled over. Qadir Ali Baig, I hear, was a quiet a popular writer. His son, Mohammad Ali Baig runs the Qadir Ali Baig foundation. This foundation organizes the Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival annually since 2007. Today was Day 2.

Day 2 of the festival was featuring the second play by Naseeruddin Shah - Ismat Aapa ke Naam Part 2. I had missed this play once in Bangalore, during Dusshera time this year. So, when I realised that I was getting a second chance and that mom would also love to watch it, I bought the tickets. The play was very nice. The style presentation, as Manoj Pahwa reminded us in the introduction, was more of a narration style. The character would narrate as well as enact the story. This was quiet an interesting narration style. The plots were interesting too.

The play "Ismat Aapa ke Naam" as the name suggests was a colourful ensemble of stories written by Ismat Chugtai - India's first liberal women writers. Naseer and team had chosen 3 stories - Amar Bel, Nannhi ki Naani and Do Haath. Of the the three stories - I love "Do Haath" the best. All in all good second day at the theatre festival.

Though I will miss the one tomorrow, but always wishing that we have many more events like these. Looking forward to the second leg of the festival to be organised at Ravindra Bharti from Nov 6th.h

Soul Soothing - Jai Ho

Rehman Bhai kee Jai Ho....is the after thought that is part of the after effect of most soul soothing and exhilarating weekend experience....the AR Rehman Jai Ho concert here at Hyderabad on 24th Oct 2009. It was always a secret dream to attend an AR Rehman concert.

Especially after watching the magnificient AR Rehman concert held in Delhi on TV, always always secretly prayed that I should also be presented with an oppourtunity to attend the concert live and watch 2 of my most favourite musicians - AR Rehman and Sivamani.

The evening started off with a bang. I don't want to recap the whole event. All I want to say is that it was an out of this world experience.....with numbers like Dil Se, Khawaja Mere Khawaja and Ring Ring Ringaa. Once the concert started, I didn't look left or right, I was stuck staring at the stage. Rehmaan sahab gave us a power packed night with fast songs, love songs, classical, sufi, rap. The conclusion was the best. My most favourite part was the sitar jugalbandi. Full respect for all performers, and all the love for Rehmaan and Sivamani. Loved our part of audience section.....people sitting in front of us and in a few rows behind were all very sporting.......we all shouted a lot of songs during the concert and, clapped and waved our hands. It was good they asked me to keep the camera in the car, as I wouldn't have used it. I was busy shouting the songs and dancing on my seat. The conclusion was befitting a Rehman concert.

He ended with - Jai Ho and Vande Mataram. We all stood up for Jai Ho and we were all shouting and jumping for Jai Ho and of course we all did a full throated shout on Vande Mataram.

Rehman is simply the best and I feel lucky to have finally attended his concert live.

I sound like a love struck puppy...don't I. Don't care, I was just part of most one of most previleged group of people who watched AR Rehman live.

My Tryst with Theatre

I come from a fine arts loving family and a family where everyone is encouraged to learn at least one of the forms - dance, music, theatre. My grandparents used to play the sitar. My uncles have learnt instruments and my aunt Kathak. I also tried to keep the tradition going.

1. I trained in Kathak for 3 years.
2. I tried to learn the keyoboard, but wasn't too successful.

Then I found performance.

I started with attending the concert by Mr. Anup Jalota and another one by Mr. Jagjit Singh. Then, I went to US to finish my study and then I came back and discovered theatre.

I attended my first play 2 weekends ago, 2nd October. I never thought I would watch Mr. Naseeruddin Shah perform as my first play to attend. It was a great experience. The play was titled "Katha Collage".

Katha Collage - as it was a collection of 3 plays - Bade Bhai Sahab, Shatranj Ke Khiladi and Samantran. The first two were written by Munshi Premchand.

I've probably just read one or two stories written by Munshi Premchand, as part of course work. But, I would definitely like to read Bade Bhai Sahab.

Naseer's son Imad had played the protagonist in this play. He was very good and a very very close resemblence with Naseer, even in the voice.

All in all it was a very enjoyable experience and very theraputic for curing the stress built up for weeks.

Me and mom agreed, that plays and theatre definiltely improves our quality of life. Fine arts isn't a very expensive hobby if compared with the shopping and movies people do every weekend.

Discovering Sudha Murty - the author

We all know her as the better half of the software entrepreneurship icon, but I just discovered Sudha Murty, the author.

During my long hiatus, about which you can read on my other blog, on my way back from Bangalore after attending Preetam bhaiya's wedding I discovered 2 books written by Sudha Murty - Mahasheta and Gently Falls the Bakula.

Easy reads and but awsome books. Had I not fallen asleep on my way back to Hyderabad, I would've definitely finished Mahashweta.

Mahashweta is a simple story which we can all relate to - struggle of a woman when she discoveres she has lucoderma and how her fairy tale wedding comes to an end and she realises the true colours of her husband and in-laws. The other book was more close to my heart - Gently Falls the Bakula.

Gently falls the Bakula is about the emptyness of a woman's life when she totally becomes her husband's shadow and how the female protoganist realises this and takes a bold decision to reconstruct her life. The book made me realise all the struggles and sacrifices my mother has happily gone through for us. And makes me want to stop her from sacrificing anymore and want everyone else around including me to do a little more than we do because its a previlege that a woman sacrifices for her family, its not her duty. This is the first time I read about a strong female protagonist.

Not a lot of stories I read, where the female protagonists are strong to rise to the challenge independently and face them successfully. Somewhere, these novels give me a reassurance that my principle of being completely independent isn't wrong. The only interesting this is that in both the stories the protagonists walk out of their marriage, sorry Mrs. Murty I'm giving away the endings. It almost feels like an indenpendent woman can't make a marriage work because her husband always feels threatened because of her fierce independent attitude. This is also a major point of difference between me and mom.

Mom always tells me that to make a marriage and a family successful, the wife has to take the backseat in terms of work and go into the shadows because one person has to look after the family and kids and nurtuting them and making them a better human being. I don't disagree that a mother has to spend more time with the kids when they are growing up, I've seen this true in our own family. Though, I don't agree with the shadow part.

A woman is most precious gift a man from God gets in his life and he should respect her and cherish her. And when there is a family, the whole family should realise her contributions and sacrifices and not take her for granted. I would love to read a book where a woman lives on her own terms and has a sucessful marriage and happy family.

Mrs. Murty, since you've seen the world more than I have, I want to ask you," Is there no reality where a woman is able to fulfil her dreams and still have a successful marriage and a happy well developed family." If there is, please write about it. I'm not very sure if a woman has to pay the price of being independent as walking out of a marriage and having no family.

Soothing the heart with Music & Lyrics

Ever seen a movie and just said, "Aww, that felt nice." Music and Lyrics did that to me.

It's a heart soothing watch, on a rainy sunday with some coffee/tea/cola/fruit punch (whatever you may prefer). For me, it was like watching one of the lesser known movies which are worth watching once because they are built using the same basic formula without too much glitter and gloss.

I keep watching different types of movies, so sometimes I want to watch the old run of the mill movie. Reminded me of "Never Been Kissed", one of the other lesser known movies of Drew Barrymore. Though, I watched Music & Lyrics for Hugh Grant.

Being a Hugh Grant, I make it a point to watch all his movies - that have come out since I came of age. He is undoubtedly one of the best chocolate boys of English movies. And he plays the romantic roles with best of the best English charm that he doesn't have to try to bring out, it flows naturally. His portrayal of the coming of the age of the pop-sensation in the movie was good to watch. Technically, the movie lacked a lot of things, but I don't want to get into all that.

I had a soothing experience at the end of it, that's what I'm going with. Would definitely have to start with a Hugh Grant collection now.

Raaz 2 - Bhatt can't so without inspiration

Raaz 2 was on my list of movies to watch and I finally caught up with it last night. Bhatt seems to have his director inspired not only by the stories from Hollywood but also the movie making style. Emraan was good, Kangana and Adhyayan were themselves - wooden and for Jackie Dada it was business as usual.

All in all ok.....but watch it on rented DVD.

Don't want to say much.

Raaz was a much better inspiration.

Yeh Delhi Hai Mere Yaar

When a book sketches out the scene in your brain, we call it a lively description. When a movie sucks you into a scene being enacted and you feel like on of the extras in the crowd of the shot, I don't know what you call it, but I call it a super cool, highly engaging visual delight. "Wow" - to sum it up all up.

Yes, I said "Wow" (in my brain) when the movie ended. I felt like I was standing in Chandini Chowk, even though the set was setup in Jaipur. I was completely conumed by the vibrancy and energy of the portrayal. Bravo Mr. Mehra and team.

Yes, all Kudos to Mr. Rakeysh Mehra and his team of technicians for putting us through such a detailed portrayal of the Chandini Chowk. Mehra's team has nailed it to T, in putting the set together. Costumes, look, make-up everything was perfect. I was completely floored by the Visual Treat I was subjected to. Loved that scene where the cow is about is give birth to a calf in the middle of the road or where a sleeping Abhisek Bachchan in the car is woken up by the snorting of a horse on his face. This brings me to the characters in the movie.

First of all, Rakeysh and his team did a fantastic job of sketching out all the characters to the perfection. Secondly, the casting was also perfect except the lead stars. The real stars of the movie are all the character actors - Om Puri, Pavan Malhotra, Supriya Pathak, Deepak Dobriyal, Raghubeer Yadav and the likes. I hope Abhishek and Sonam took a lot of notes when watching the others portray their role if they want to improve their career graph. The plot was good but slightly thin as Rakeysh seems to want to fit a lot in very less time.

It seemed like Rakeysh was a man on the mission to fit every little detail about Chandini Chowk in the movie. I felt he should've developed the Kala Bandar angle a little more. Other, than that I thought the movie was "WOW".