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…takes its own time. I used my kitchen for the first time today. Cooked maggi. Also, I finally have water inside the flat.

The Pondicherry show was a con. There was no audience! Technically it was yet another rehearsal and nothing more than that. But then, we had real stage and real green room and real lights. So, it was a nice rehearsal with full props and costumes and all that. I hope the show in Bangalore turns out to be good. Let’s see.

You remember the last post where I wrote that I had to go pick mangoes from my bro? Man, that day was doomed. I reached Central and waited for two long hours for the train to come. I met my bro and he handed me my stuff. Then he asked me to see some videos on his laptop that he had edited and he, in the meantime, went off to get himself biryani. Now, usually that train halts for half an hour. Usually.

That day, it left off much early. A fellow passenger saw the train moving and alerted me. I paused the video, placed down the laptop on the seat and rushed towards the boggie door. Before I could jump off, I realized I had forgotten to pick my mangoes. I came back, picked them up and then rushed towards the gate again, with greater speed this time. Finally, I managed to jump off through the moving train which to my relief hadn’t yet picked too much speed.

I started walking in the opposite direction, looking for my bro. He must have jumped inside some other boggie, I thought. I kept looking for him, in every boggie that passed by. The last boggie passed by finally and I could not spot my brother. Oh wait, I had spotted him. There he was. Running.

He was running on the platform, chasing the train. Awesome! So well, he missed the train. He had tried to run harder but it was too late. He now had one packet of biryani and I, another one, of mangoes. The laptop, with the paused movie was still lying on his seat, with its flaps wide open. All his remaining luggage and especially his share of mangoes were inside the train too. Something had to be done.

Another train was to leave for Bangalore in another half an hour. He took that train. As he found a seat near a window, two more buggers showed up to give him company. And guess what? They had missed the same train! It’s such a relief to know you are not the only fool around, isn’t it? The good thing was that they had a friend inside the train that had left. Of course that friend had a cell-phone. Phew!

So finally after paining these dude’s friend, and an uncle and a cousin in Bangalore, my bro’s luggage reached the city, safely, and before my bro. This was his trip to Bangalore for his internship by the way. And you thought I was the only one who was jinxed when it came to internships? Well, I guess it just is in the family!

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I sit in a cyber-cafe again. Last time it was in Kolkata where this happened. This time it’s Chennai itself. Chennai, the city that saw me change from a vulnerable boy to a comfortable man.

Yesterday morning, I checked out a house in T. Nagar, liked it enough, paid security money by afternoon and got some luggage shifted from the hostel room to this new place by evening (all thanks to Tiwari). I crashed off yesterday night in my new house. Alone.

Yesterday night, it marks the beginning of a new life in Chennai.

Allright, enough of the boring stuff. Here’s the interesting bit. I got up in the morning and rushed to insti to get some official work done. When I reached my room, I realized that I had left my hostel room key back in the house. Now, my laptop and some other stuff were still lying in the hostel room. I almost felt like breaking the lock but then decided to come back, do some cleaning-sheaning of the new place and then go back to insti in the evening, with the key this time. So far so good. I came back. Guess what? They key was lost. I just could not find it anywhere! Wonderful.

So well, yeah, I should go back to my hostel room and break open the lock. Clap clap. Is there a worse time to lose your room keys but when you are shifting from one place to another?

Is this what the crow had wanted to tell? Crow-shit!

By the way, this nearest cyber-cafe is bang on Mount road and its costly: 20 bucks for an hour. I might have to reconsider my decision to stick to a net-free life inside my house.

Take care thou sweet readers. I shall keep you updated and entertained. Right now, let me go buy a screw-driver so that I can make my way to my own room (the lock is small and I am sure I can crack it with a screw-driver). And before that I also need to go to Central to collect mangoes that my mother has sent through brother. His train goes to Banaglore but halts in Chennai for a good half an hour.

Chalo then, milte hain ek chote se lock ke baad. Ok. Ok. Sorry for the bad PJ. Bbye!

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Popularity: 15% [?]

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Before I begin, thanks everyone who turned up. Thank you so much. Muaah.

Alright, here I go. I don’t know about the acting bit, but I loved it when Prachi threw that look of disbelief at me when I told her it actually was me who was answering my own questions while playing Akrur Chowdhary, the ventriloquist who talked to an invisible guy, on stage. I actually pulled of ventriloquism. Heh. Nice. She thought Bala was shouting from Green Room. I can make for a good ventriloquist I guess.

I was kinda nervous yesterday and let few words slip here and there, but more or less I managed to pull off a sufficiently tight performance. The body language could definitely have been used more effectively. With time, I shall improve.

What everyone loved yesterday was the last part of my story where I played the land-lord. The bihari accent and the body language that came out for the land-lord Suresh Mastuddi, struck a wonderful cord with everyone out there (though sadly, the turn-out was unsatisfactory). All in all it was fun playing four characters and creating five different voices in twenty minutes.

Retell Redone was obviously better than Retell and no, not because I was there in one of the shows (LOL, wish I could say that though) but because this time they/we (whatever applies :P), had nice music and vocals going on. Ipe on flute, Varun on veena and Jaya on vocals added a lot of class to the entire two hours show. If you missed this stuff, you missed something man, you really did. In the review for Retell, I had written how Bala could have done better. In Retell Redone, you should have seen him; so cute. But Sumukhi, of course was just the best! Bow to her! Her acting simply touched the heart once again, because as always it came out like so much of a real thing. Anaro Bano has to be the cutest Iraninan mother.

Ok. Done. Time to move on. I still feel like narrating the entire script to me every half an hour. The play season is not going to end for me. See me in Pondicherry coming weekend playing the role of Prince Mamalla in Gowri Ramnarayan’s Flame of the Forest.

Sivakami, in kutto ke saamne mat naachna. Mai aa raha hoon Pulikesi, mai aa raha hoon.

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No one is safe today. The incident happened on a busy street right next to Valluvar kottam Police Station, day before yesterday, in broad daylight. I had just come out from a house that I had been to as part of my search for a decent place to live in Chennai. So I was walking on the road and suddenly, a dark ugly crow, came flying down from behind me, descended enough to brush past my left ear and then it rose up again to go sit on one of those electric cables running over the street. It’s claws had scratched the tender skin. The ear started bleeding.

This was shit man, crow-shit. I mean, I had seen my toe bleed, my head bleed, my arm bleed and even my dog’s ass bleed but my ear? WTF! Fuck the flying beast and may it never get to feast on any dead rat or dog, ever in its life. I almost had the temptation to rush to an ammunition shop, buy an air-gun along with a box of million dodges, and in the next one hour kill all the dirty motherfucking crows of Valluvar kottam. What had I done to deserve a bleeding ear?

Shit, wait a second. Was the crow trying to tell me something? In the ear? Shit! Crow-shit!

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The following is what i wrote on this date, last year and every word of it holds true even today.

I wonder what kind of people read posts which carry such titles!

I won’t write anything more about any of these than what is already known. But today, if you ask me, I will tell you that they are like the three legs of a tripod. What is a friendship that lacks love? And what is a life that lacks friendship?

Today is a special day. And I dedicate it to my best friend who knows who he is. I don’t know, nor do I care when the rest of the world celebrates friendship day. For me, it’s today. Happy friendship day to me.

I recently discussed how I have many best friends but no one best friend. But this one friendship referred to in the the lines above will always remain special to me. No, I am not going to talk about the reasons. Sorry.

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…in the last show of Retell Redone at 7 PM this Sunday (29th June 2008) at Alliance France, Nungambakkam Chennai. Tickets come for 100 bucks (50 for students with i-cards) and can be picked up directly at the venue. If you want me to block it for you, let me know and I will gladly do so.

Retell Redone is nothing but Retell being redone. LOL! Okay, alright that was a dumb statement to make but anyway.. so yeah.. I had blogged about Retell earlier. I had also reviewed the play. The play consists of six short stories, one of which I am doing now (for just one show). Ironically, I had rated Bhuto 2/10 the last time I saw the play. LOL, seriously, what can be more ironical than doing some stuff that you yourself didn’t like?

You know what, let me just be frank and do some self-analysis here. Why did I accept this role?

Varun had performed Bhuto in the previous shows and will be doing it for the other three shows of Retell Redone (totally there are two shows on Sat and two shows on Sunday). Now, he has been doing theater for quite some time now (quite some years actually) and he no doubt, is a good actor. So am I trying to prove that I will be able to do better acting than him? LOL! I really don’t think so.

Forget about controlling my body-language (over which most of these theater guys have beautiful command), I am busy most of the times simply trying to speak normally without any vague accent creeping in. I am an actor, I know it, and pretty natural one on that (heh, how much more can one praise oneself? ), but theater needs much more than just acting dude. Like every art, there is a lot to be learnt. So well, yeah, coming back to the original question, why the fuck did I still pick up the role then?

Heh, the answer is simple da. Varun ain’t free on Sunday evening!

When Bala, the director, asked me (I don’t know why he did that indirectly though), if I would be interested in doing that one show, I just said yes. Now, the tricky question is this: is it justified to promote my performance, just because ‘I’ am doing one show, even when I’m performing something that has already been performed by someone who, in my own opinion is obviously a better actor, and especially when I myself did not like Bhuto?

But what to do? Ego re! I can only wish that you guys who come to watch me, don’t get disappointed. Although I so wish so, I actually have no bloody reason in this world to believe why that should happen. All I know is that I am going to have fun doing that on stage. All I hope for is that you guys have fun too.

Hey, wait a second. There is another reason too. Shit, how could I forget Sumukhi! Did you check out the review by any chance? If you did, then you must have read this observation that I had to make for another story performed in Retell, with Sumukhi in the lead:

Pomegranate lady and her sons: The 100 bucks that I paid to watch Retell was worth it all just for this single story.

So, the best thing about turning up for the show would be that, even if Bhuto still sucks, you still get value for your money. Now, tell me my dear phrand, do you have any reason not to show up? Chalo, map shap dekh lo neeche aur aa jaana time pe. And if it makes you happy, rehearsals are going good.

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I don’t know how but I ended up watching loads of time-lapse videos on youtube today. About two years ago, I had shot a time-lapse video of myself making a pencil portrait. Today I felt like shooting once more (bro has finally returned my cheap camera after two years). There is just one difference. Unlike the last time, I did not have the enthusiasm to draw grid-lines. So yeah, I went ahead with total freehand, bindaas, and must say, didn’t do a bad job at all. Enjoy the video though what else it is but chumma shelf-shag.

Update (June 27, 2008): the portrait

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Isn’t creativity all about adding bits and pieces to vague ideas till finally the ideas start making sense? What is vagueness? That’s not difficult to answer, is it?

WTF? Why would she every say that to the guy? It’s an open question. Try answering that. I have a crazy wicked explanation in mind, which can make for a funny shitoon. But for a change, I want you folks to do the thinking instead. Yes, do some lateral thinking, be creative, start adding bits and pieces, make a story around this one dialog, till it makes sense. U-create.

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