SlishaCrazy

2/5 rating Shadowland It seemed like a great idea. To go to a theatre show that's about a play on lights and shadows (see what I did there? Play haha). It was good, when they did their psychedelic stuff. I could have watched it all day listening to pink floyd. But the actual stuff was crazy. I never understood why the girl becomes a dog. It's not even that hard. And the girl nearing the end of the show, gets topless for no apparent reason. It's not much of a difference considering that to begin with the girl and her parents were just maniquins in underwear who suddenly become parents and people when they wear clothes. It's probably to show that they are not using props to create the shadows. Some times they do and they show you the props. The dreamy sequences with all the well built guys with knees caps and in underwear, and the one guy who can compete with Undertaker is not too bad. I probably didn't understand it because I was a little too bored to care. It...

... No! It's SIRO-A !!! 4/5 rating SIRO-A | Soho Theatre These guys are amazing. They use technology to the fullest extent. They had a projector feeding in lights and colours. They also used it to create clones of themselves. They had a live projector to create a large scary being out of the little guy sitting in one corner. They had a camera that helped produce a song live, even though nobody sang it. They made a music video with audience dancing even though nobody danced. They had a bit of a laser show. They had some live DJs too. What more could you want !!!

Today I start a new label - The Stage. I remember reading Merchant of Venice and many abridged versions of many Shakespearean plays many years ago, Hamlet included. (I'm writing this in a cab and I looked through my window when a pub named The Shakespeare passed me by. Talk about signs.) You see, I never really liked Shakespeare. Love is supposed to be unconditional and selfless according to Bollywood. Shakespearean love is selfish and destructive. When K made plans to watch one of my favourite actors as Othello, I refused to join in because my dislike for Shakespeare overshadowed how much I like Adrian Lester. Then. Now. I regret missing that performance. Not only did I miss watching him as Othello, I also missed Rory Kienner's award winning performance as Iago. And, I also regret missing Shakespeare's Othello. Haider is the reason. Haider is extraordinary. There is another blogpost describing how extraordinary it is. But for now, this statement suffices. Haider ...

5/5 rating Radiant Vermin | Soho Theatre Unwavering performance. Period. There is no set. There are no props. There is just one light change. There is good story but not strong enough by itself. And there are but two actors. Actually, there are three actors but two of them holds it together for most of the play. As I said, the story is good. It's a darkly funny story and full of surprising metaphors. Gill and Oliver, a young couple from the Generation Rent, find themselves with a free home when they never thought they might own a home. As it turns out the home needs no money for renovations, only the sacrifice of homeless people or 'renovators'. And as the locality is gentrified with the number of homeless people reducing and the net worth of the neighbours increasing, Gill and Oliver find guilt clawing at them but convince each other they are doing it for their children. Wouldn't you do the same for yours? They couldn't have given a better metaphor for gent...

3/5 rating 3 Winters | National Theatre K and I watched 3 Winters at Lyttleton before we watched Dara. But it just took me a long time to collect my thoughts on the unfamiliar.  For most part, the set is just one living room, except shown across three winters, decades apart in Zagreb, Croatia. The play alternates between these three winters, one set in early communist era post the second world war when Rose takes possession of this house that the rest of the play is set in. She takes the house where her mother used to work as a maid and who was turned away with the then two year old Rose, to spite fate. The play then goes forward to when Croatia is in turmoil during the fall of the Soviet Union fighting for its independence then forward again to the privatisation of Croatia and the equality of all replaced with capitalism and it's exploitation. The play alternates between these three winters and the same living room is altered every time to the detail to maintain the ...

5/5 rating Fireworks | Soho Theatre It's a Palestinian play adapted in English called Al'ab Nariya or The Fireworks by Dalia Taha. Let me begin by saying that I was so shaken and overwhelmed that even after the play it took me a few minutes to find my bearings. The stage was very small at Jerwood upstairs, and the audience was small too but every seat was taken and people squeezed in to accommodate more. That's one cosy setting. So when they showed us living rooms on stage it felt like were all inside the living rooms making the play that much more intense. The play focuses on two families living in a building in a war struck Palestine. Not that they wanted war. They just happened to be living somewhere where war happened to break out and now they have blackout tape and bombs dropping everywhere. While all the neighbours are leaving because of the bombing, these families haven't yet. Simple stories of simple families caught in the extraordinary. This hea...

3.5/5 rating Dara | National Theatre I'm very ignorant about history and that's something I've been trying to correct but the vastness of it all is a bit overwhelming. So when K and I booked tickets to a play called Dara, it was only because we found the marketing summary interesting - that Dara was one of Aurangzeb's older brothers and that it's a Pakistani play adapted in English for the NT. The only history we knew was that Aurangzeb imprisoned his father and killed his brothers to ascend to the throne. When I mentioned to my mother, who has a bachelor's in Indian history, that I was going to a play titled Dara, she told me he was a poet and a painter, and a patron of Islam art in the golden Mughal era. With the downfall of the Mughal empire not long after Aurangzeb, there were many discussions of an alternative history of the country had Dara become the ruler. So what I originally expected, a little known and well imagined rivalry between broth...

It's about time someone made things out of Lego, no? When I was growing up I didn't have Lego blocks exactly but a friend had them and they give these infield possibilities to build anything you like. It's extremely interesting and inspiring for young. Or so I thought. Recently when I was trying to buy something for some kid and thought of Legos, I found out that all the infinite possibilities have been reduced to only one single possibility per box you buy. And it's Lego that retains are the infinite possibilities that it sells as infinite sets of boxes, and deprives the parents of infinite money and children of their imagination which was what in the first place made Lego blocks so fantastic. I digress, but I think it's important to point out. Anyway, now that I explained how Lego lost its intrinsic brand value let's move on to the originally envisaged infinite possibilities of the generation that grew up with regular Lego. And it made me wonder how awes...

4/5 rating Behind the Beautiful Forevers | National Theatre Katherine Boo, a Pulitzer prize winning journalist went to a slum in Mumbai next to the airport called Annawadi and spent three years there living and learning with the slum-dwellers who are mostly rag-pickers. After her return to New York, she wrote a book, a non-fiction narrative about the lives of the people. I haven't read it. The book was adapted into a play by David Hare who spent time with Katherine and then in Annawadi. It's playing in London at the National Theatre,  Nov-Apr . I went to it this weekend. The audience was largely non-Indian (not even of origin) and also for some reason the average age was much higher as well, say 50. So the people sitting next to us got an interesting perspective I guess. The first half was very well done. The choice of music was the highlight. The sets were used beautifully to create various effects like a flight landing close by and at one point it literally rains plas...

... Of watching a really bad play. 1/5 rating The Valley of Astonishment | Young Vic It's been long since I watched a play, so K and I went to watch one, off west end; for the real thing, you see. The write up, reviews and the general idea of The Valley of Astonishment made it a very attractive play. It was in the Young Vic, and we didn't expect to be enthralled by the acting skills but we were expecting a good play, especially after guardian and independent giving some good reviews. Having watched the play we were left with a strong feeling of being cheated by it. K lost his appetite. Of course, we can't blame anyone else for choosing which play to watch. We just made a bad choice. The play had one normal linearly flowing story of a 44 year old woman, Sammy Costas who had an uncanny memory due to synaesthesia and becomes a phenomenon. And then there are smaller stories in between that are all unrelated but are about various degrees of synaesthesia. And then, th...

This post is overdue, written on the very day I came back. I was waiting for pics but I shall add them a few weeks later. Sitting here in London, right after St Jude and colder, darker nights after the clocks switch back, it's hard to believe I was on a beautifully sunny beach hours ago. Flights and timezones, latitudes and seasons. The world is small place today. Day 1 It is probably one of the closest airports to any city. It takes barely 18 mins by train (Renfe) from airport to Barcelona Sants. The metro has long transfers, air-conditioned coaches with doors that don't automatically open. The metro shuts at midnight every week night, later on Friday nights and never on Saturday nights. I got a T10 card that allows for 10 travels but if you are staying for longer a Hola BCN might be more useful. To figure all this out reading between Spanish and Catalan, I arrived much later than expected missing a Sandemans walking tour. So no snippets or history this time (any you see...

One of the last sunny weekend afternoons in London, we watched The Illusionists at Apollo. We had watched Now You See Me and we wanted to watch the real deal. It wasn't as grande obviously. But it was wonderfully done.  The Mentalist opened the show with the oldest trick of all, pick a card from a pack and guessed a lot of things which he actually manipulated the audience into thinking The Trickster was funny with audience volunteers and put up an entertaining show The Escapologist escaped in time and charming with his Italian accent The Inventor made a lovely rose for a little girl and he even made her do some magic The Enchantress and the Gentleman melted solid rings through each other taken from the audience and cut her into two The Anti-Conjuror, Dan Sperry, is the best of all. He didn't say a word, fashioned himself as Marilyn Mason and brought out pigeons out of everywhere and anywhere. But he also did some really weird things like getting a thread into his ...

The weekend began with a dinner with an old friend that I don't know when I will meet again. Good to wake up early on a Saturday morning to make a quick trip to work to run some errands and grab breakfast, only to come back home and have lunch. It was good that I ate well since the rest of the day was standing dancing festival in a big big muddle puddle of a park after a downpour.  SW4 was amazing in spite of all that. We heard Gareth Emery on the main stage for a short while before moving to a tent to listen to Orjan Nilsen, not so impressive. But he was quickly replaced by Aly & Fila.  We moved to the main stage to listen to Sanden Van Door and Eddie Halliwell. We went back to the tent for Paul Van Dyk. And finally got back to the main stage to listen to Laidback Luke closing and finally the Armin Van Burren.  Image courtesy: CB That was 7 hours of a trance music. Enough for a long long while I think. By the time Armin came on stage I was so ...

In a span for 4 weeks I watched two circuses (not the one with animals, only people doing weird but entertaining stuff). I watched a massive circus production in a large auditorium last month. They had web pages full of descriptions of each character and the idea and conception of the circus. It was good, really good. And I haven't seen circus since I don't remember when, so I was impressed. But all the shows were of very few people, some even just one or two people shows. It was far away and it was hard to see up close. I enjoyed it though. I watched a circus on Saturday, in a small tent with a small gathering of people. It was absolutely breathtaking. It was beautifully presented and had everything I would expect in circus except the trapeze but to make up for the trapeze they had three people on three poles do incredible things. The fire show was the best. It's always been my favourite and it was wonderfully done. The music was created on stage, as is with all...

I felt it's time I needed a new header. But I haven't been doing much lately except, working, watching movies and reading books. And since I can't talk about work and movies are not much to add to, books is all I have. So here is a header with my bookshelf. It doesn't have too many books because I usually borrow from the library here (there are 4 books on the shelf that I borrowed from the library and 1 that I borrowed from a friend). But to compensate for 10,000 books I added my kindle too...

Leandro Erlich has some really interesting ideas about art. He plays with light and mirrors and creates illusions for art. It's beautiful and fascinating; one needs to be really smart to do this. You can check out some his work on his webpage . I especially love his "Double Tea". Recently I found on the web that he has an installation in Dalston, called the Dalston House. After reading up on the web I really wanted to see it. It's basically the front wall of a house to the scale and complete with a door and a few windows, placed on the ground. Attached to it is an equally scaled clear mirror at 45 degrees. So whatever is on the floor is visible on the mirror like as if it is standing up on the ground at 90 degrees, ie the front wall of the house. A few of us went to Dalston on a sweltering hot sunny day. There was a long queue for the installation. A long queue not to see it but to take pictures on it. So people lie on it and take pictures of the reflection ...

Recently I noticed this picture doing the rounds on Facebook. I must say I was surprised. I assumed it was hoax. I tried to look up the Parliament archives. But before that I saw a lot of articles about this issue. It's an old forward, very very old. Obviously given it is claimed to be some 1835 archive. The forward is clearly fake. For the following reasons given by many people (who claim this is purely faked by Hindu Nationalists): 1. Lord Macaulay was in India on this date and stayed in India a few years staring 1834, that includes 2nd Feb 1835 so he could not have addressed the British Parliament. 2. Lord Macaulay would not have been addressed as Lord then because he was not a lord yet. 3. And most importantly, that this was not his exact quotation. and many more reasons I do not want to give benefit to, but basically surrounding other fringe points as above. Also many claim that it could have possibly been mis-linked to a report he produced called the "mi...

Once a year my school would take us on a picnic. Every day one section of one class would go. And since we have 2+10+2 classes and the lower classes have up to 10 sections it took us a good few months to get it all done. And the picnics were around the rainy season. Not the monsoon really. But Vizag has a late monsoon Jul/Aug and it has a cyclone storm every Oct/Nov. So you could have rain-free picnic but you could not bet on it. And it was short but it was fun. It had to be a school day so we left at 8.30 and came back by 1. Picnic was fun at school. We would bring our toys out to the school. We would ride our school bus for about an hour and sing songs. At the picnic spot we would play games, play with the toys we brought, share the different food we brought, run around for no reason at all, sit around and play board games too and I loved the swing. Most of the times we went to Mudasarlova. It's a reservoir with a park. Occasionally we went to Vuda Park. It is more or les...

(A first meeting conversation) Where are you from? India . Yes yes, where in India? I doubt you'd know. It's a beach town on the east coast. Visakhapatnam. Oh. I've actually been to India. Oh you did? Where about? Mostly north.  ... I don't like what they did to Mumbai. What do you mean? I don't like how the government threw everyone out. All the other cities in the world throw people out organically. London becomes expensive and people leave. But mumbai was built by throwing people out. It could have been more organised. *** (Not the first time. The rest of the discussion did indeed result in fair understanding of each other's point of view) I would most definitely support a woman. Over a man. Yes, if they are equally qualified. I believe a woman worked harder than a man to get to this equal position. Now that is discrimination. *** (A first meeting conversation) Calcutta is safe. As a woman I feel it's a safe place. People come to help yo...

I got locked inside the worst place possible. Trash. My street has a room where you throw the trash bags in, and the trash is collected from there. This room has a combination lock. I have no idea why. What do people steal from trash, and why does it matter if they do? Anyhow it has a combination lock. I usually Just open the door and throw the bag over into the massive wheel barrow like vessel, usually already piled with other trash bags, all the while standing outside the room.Today this vessel was so filled up that if I threw the bag, it would roll back on to me. So I walked into the room to put it in the second empty vessel behind the first one. I put it in while the door closed behind me. I was locked. The door is the wooden design with horizontal slanting slits for ventilation. I googled it for an appropriate name for the design but could not find (I mean I googled it now, not when I was stuck inside). So I could get plenty of air and that was a good thing. But no one could see...