The Penguin Lunch!

If the play got postponed by two weeks, the penguin lunch followed the same fate and got postponed by a week. But today it HAPPENED! And here's an overview of the most fun lunch ever.

The tallest penguin informs everyone to be at the reception at one o clock. But, one of the penguins sits at the canteen and socialises while we wait! "What does she think of herself", says the tall one! Within a few minutes all four penguins congregate and leave for their battle ground. Venue changed to meet conveniences that cannot be disclosed publically. Theatre gods bless us as we see one our play comrade going in an ac car towards Casa Picolla- our battle ground! We get a lift to our destination.

Enter battle ground- we seat ourselves near a pillar. The tallest penguin and the penguin with wacky ideas sit together on one side and the youngest and the worried one (i dislike the incriminating title given but for convenience of comprehension sake I'm left with no choice) on the other.

The menu card arrives- we rip it open. Since it was my first visit to this place it took me some time to find the names of the dishes the connoisseurs were throwing around. While doing so we swerve away from the intention and start blabbering about other equally important issues of life. D eyes around to see familiar faces.

The waiter comes and listens to our incomprehensible chorus of names of dishes. We give up on his inability to understand us and ask him to come later.

D- "Can I have some water please?"- she looks around with eager eyes.

T laughs out loud at the very thought that she'll get high on chocolate. D adds cheese as another stimulant. C and I look at each other in dismay! Are we the only sane ones in this world?

Well, we finally decide on what we want and order the menu while T keeps going he he he eh. Now it begins to worry us all. :S Can the thought of marble cake drive someone so mad? Meanwhile, we figure out we're not having enough fun- hence, we start singing Captain Planet followed by the Powerpuff Girl's title track. The neighbouring table had a little girl sitting completely shell shocked at the madness of a bunch of college-going girls who are expected to maintain a certain decorum in public places.
(D- Can I have some water please?)
T explains to the mother that its a post-play production team lunch. Its self-explanatory now, isn't it? :)
The lunch arrives- hog hog hog hog hog. Yum Yum Yum Yum.
(D- Can I have some water please?)
T couldn't hold it now. She had had enough of a wait for the dessert. Pounce! The marble cake arrives and is finished within minutes. For my sake, the chocolate syrup came separately. Not like it helped cause it was accidentally kept next to T who for a moment thought it was H2O!
Stomachs full, sitting like balloons- D- Lets run on the Beach!
T,C,M- What????
It took a while to convince D that a run on the beach at 2:30 in the afternoon was certainly not a penguiny thing to do. Then came the Penguin Snap- which took us longer than eating food cause we had to face problems like-
1. Where can we click it?
2. OOhhh this shop is so pretty! (C- Concentrate on snap location, will you!)
3. Can we trust this watchman with the camera?
4. Is he drunk?
5. Who will click the snap?
6. Not the stairs!
7. How do we all fit in?
8. Fine, the stairs, but do we sit or stand?
Result- We stand randomly in between the passage, say cheese and C clicks a snap- it comes out beautifully. :)
This was probably the most random lunch possible, but then aren't all the penguins random in their own sweet ways? An afternoon i shall cherish for life.
Joyee.


P.S- other things that happened at the lunch that couldn't be incorporated:
1. My obsession with cleaning the table
2. T licking chocolate from everywhere possible
3. D- Salt comes from a spicy place
Pepper comes from a salty place (her remarkable comments while analysing the salt and pepper dispensers)

P.S 2- i think i'm becoming senile- i forgot to mention the yummy garlic bread, T spoke to the mother after the lunch and not before and T clicked the historic snap.

To my penguins!

"Why do you need a play?", they said.
"Its such a waste of time.", they said.
"Either the play or the fund-raiser.", they said.
We smiled and proceeded.

"Why do you need a director?", they said.
"Hall? Why?", they said.
"Do it on campus.", they said.
We smiled and proceeded.

"No whores! No prostitutes!", they said.
"You're a bunch of stubborn donkeys.", they said.
"You and your blessed play.", they said.
We smiled and proceeded.

"We can't have it in the open.", they said.
"People will jump over the wall and create nuisance.", they said.
"Mosquitoes will bite.", they said.
We smiled and proceeded.

"It can't happen over four days!", they said.
"The lights are stuck.", they said.
"You have to arrange the room yourselves.", they said.
We smiled and proceeded.

"Congratulations!", they said.
"We extended our full support.", they said.
"We knew you'd do it well.", they said.
We smiled. For now, we didn't have to proceed.

BaBaOH prevailed.
:)

Its over and I miss it...

I know I haven’t posted anything in about a month butthat's because my life had been taken over by the college play. I lost my life to it, was unable to carry out non play conversation, friends disowned me until the play was over. Suddenly words like tech, light stands, sound stacks, gels and filters all made sense to me. It was like BabaOH opened up a whole new side of me that I never knew existed. Being production coordinator ofBaBaOH defined my last three months at college, taught me so much and left some brilliant memories. Months of worrying, running around, hard work and laughter. A 14 hour tech day. Two hectic days of show. The Annual College Play came and it has made an undeniable impact on every person involved in the production. Months ago people were questioning if the play would happen now I'm wishing we could do it all over again.

 

I met some brilliant people through this production. The penguins, of course, being the most important. I worked the most and the closest with the whacked penguin. She was amazing through the whole thing. From putting up with my insane jokes to actually encouraging my annoying enthusiasm. From letting me enter her house at early hours to wake her up and play with her piggies to letting me deal with the sound guy who never stops talking. From randomly calling people from the yellow pages to listening to me 10 hours in college and still getting home and texting me. All the inside jokes we shared. The mindless laughter. The huge ego trips. I miss it all. We developed a bond and learnt so much getting there. We cribbed, we bawled about efficiency, we were annoyed by the lack of funds, we ran around doing everything we had to and soomuch more but what I remember the most is the fun and the laughter. That is what I take away from BLACK & BLUE AND OTHER HUES. The fun and the laughter we had, in spite of all the complaining we threw our lives into the production and hoped to hell that it paid of.

 

There were other people, two more penguins. The most highly dedicated children ever. They worried about everything there was to worry about, anything with the remotest connection to the play. The worried one still worries and we can’t help but love her for it. The high one gave up worrying a while back and now she’s just being highness. Apart from the penguins there were a whole bunch of other people, an amazingly talented cast, super energetic crew and a brilliant director. The cast improved every time I saw them and the final result was mind blowing! I can’t pick a favorite actor. They were all so perfectly cast and I loved the end result! The crew lugged around everything so uncomplainingly. I’m so grateful to each of them for figuring it all out so well. And B was so so nice about the whole thing. We know we din’t give him half the stuff he asked for but working with him made our work 200 times simpler. Specially considering we were learning on the job.

 

Suddenly it was Friday and we had less then 24 hours to the first show. Everyone involved gave 200% and magically transformed our ugly convent type auditorium into the most appropriate place for BaBaOH. The question we had been asking ourselves all a long was about to be answered. Was all the effort worth it. The morning of the show and I ran around doing all those little things that pop up and then it was done. I looked at my penguin companion and we realised that there was nothing left to do but wait. The first show happened and we heard criticism from every side. Specially about the sound! Tech was our department and it went wrong. How! After all the work? This wasn't supposed to happen! We would set it right! She sat at lights with the man. I sat at sound and troubled the life outta the sound boy. Fortunately I had good company, as was always the case with BaBaOH, so it wasn't an ordeal. But that show killed it! That was what the effort was all for. The next two shows went equally well but its Day 1, Show 2 that remains my favorite! I loved everything about it. At the end of Day 2 I was exhausted but exhilarated! My whole family came to pick me up, cat included and I went on for the whole ride home about how brilliant the play was. Our question had been answered, two days and four shows later we had the answer. It was worth it. Every last bit of it. The long hours, the fits of tension, the constant worry. It was all worth the final result. Ask any of the people who worked on it and they will all tell you about the lessons they learnt, the friends they made and most of all how they would do it all over again given the smallest chance.

Today I couldn't help but think last week this time....I miss it, but I hope I'm looking at so much more of this with better results every time. I know I expect it.

 

To everyone who made BaBaOH a part of my best memories I *heart* you :D

curtain call

One of the things B said in the beginning of last year's production 'DRAGON', was that it would certainly change some of our lives forever. He said he didn't know how or why or when, but that it would. And it did. If it hadn't been for Dragon, we'd never have called B back for BaBaOH. And BaBaOH certainly changed my life forever.

It's almost as if I am a different person now. It's weird in a weird sort of way. I am more self assured, know what I can do and do it, wear short skirts in public, have made snide remarks about P in her very presence, yelled at SB... and for all that I have been through in the last 6 months, have broken down few times. Once when I was not well, once cause A screwed me over for something I didn't knowingly do and the last time was on Saturday morning during tech. I was just sitting there, watching Ambai, watching our months and months of work actually coming together on stage and tears were streaming down my face. Technically, that doesn't count as a break down. They were happy tears :)

I can't begin to list the things I have learnt over these few months. Technical things like lights and sounds and how if the stage dude says 20,000, DON'T BLINDLY TAKE HIS WORD FOR IT, ALWAYS CHECK AND RECHECK and how to hack into accounts, win favours from others... No, I also learnt to work with people, know who can be trusted (penguins) and those who cannot (management), how to deal with people (thanks B) and that yelling does not always get your work done how much ever the culprit wants you to yell and get it over with. I learnt that it maybe unfair (Hell, its RIDICULOUSLY UNFAIR!) that though you work 6 months without a break, you are still expected to come for practice when there is practice, and that you just shouldn't give a damn about gas bags. Don't think my fellow penguin has learnt that yet, though.

I was actually able to sit with Sr C and discuss this production objectively on Monday, and though I did defend it on almost every level, it didn't hurt me when she said Hunchback was a much better production. It might have been, for all I know, but then, how could she know about the happiness over a simple 'yes', the bonds between penguins and their insane ability to cheer each other up and come up with a plausible solution for anything and everything???

Love you guys! My cast, my crew, my director, my penguins and all those others who've been a part of my daughter's wedding. (I HAD to say that! :D )

hey hey hey it's a crying shame

Day 2 after the great event.

I'm still a bit lost, though I did enjoy my three-hour long afternoon nap today after nearly three months of going without it.

I've been annoying non-play friends by constantly quoting dialogues, or completing perfectly normal sentences with lines from 'Dahlia'. Example:

Hapless friend 1 begins a sentence with "Did you say..."
Beaming self jumps in with "DID you say God? SO manly of you!"
Hapless friend 1 turns into scowling unamused person.

I've developed an unaccountable craving for watermelon. I ate two whole bowlfuls of it today :

Being a part of Black and Blue and other Hues was definitely one of the most difficult, nerve-wracking and intense experiences I've ever had. Despite my cribbing, irritability and seeming indifference, it really kept me sane through a very trying period.

But I can't end this without recording for posterity two of the funniest things I've seen/heard in 2009:

1. Ann forgetting the tune to Dahlia's song. Her progression from a tentative "Aaaa" to an entirely new tune and finally back to the original tune halfway through Zeenab's speech was priceless.

2. Ann flushing in time to Divya banging the ching ching things together during Ambai [I don't know what they're called.. cymbals? :]. I wonder if the audience heard.

Ah yay. Just writing about those two moments just made me break out into giggles. Hehe.

A Story about Penguins.

Freakishly long post! Be warned!

Two penguins started off with the dream of a college play. In the beginning, they did the running around, the frustration, the doubt.I don’t think anyone has any idea of the amount work they did. I only wish I had been there to stick by them through it.

I came into the picture a bit later, and after me, another annoyingly enthusiastic penguin. I should mention, that it is this other penguin’s annoying enthusiasm that has carried us through the entire process. We developed a strange strain of humour, this penguin and I, and learnt much along the way. Despite the fact that we were constantly frustrated by numerous budget cuts, that we had ideas that we did not have resources to execute, that we felt other people were screwing up their jobs, that we didn’t have a jot of an idea of what we were doing and so spent a lot of time running around in useless circles, we had fun along the way. And funky orange paper. And lists. And tag lines. Among the many strange and wonderful things that we did, we called up random people from yellow pages, picked up tech terms so that we could at least pretend to know what we were doing, drew HUGE graphs and generally became very sleep deprived.

All four penguins were doing far more than they had too. One penguin was randomly stamping tickets through the middle of the night, answering frantic phone calls (and was particularly disgruntled at having to do it at seven in the morning) and driving around town throwing pamphlets into any shop that would have them. This penguin is also currently going beserk with accounts. One penguin was running from office to office, getting approval for the most bizarre of things. That penguin was also running from pillar to post trying to raise more money. One penguin learnt graphic design over night. Another penguin pulled an all nighter trying to rectify the previous penguin’s mistakes. All the penguins spammed the world’s mailboxes and inboxes. Other people were pitching in as well, cast, crew, people who weren’t mentioned anywhere, a lot of their work went unrecognized. To them, I am intensely grateful (G!) The cast (which contained some of the most talented people I know), crew (who were a freakishly dedicated bunch, bless ‘em) and the penguins were all over worked. During bus rides from printers-to college-to printers-to college-to printers, I would wonder whether if the play was really worth the energy and time we were putting into it. The only thing that made the whole thing worthwhile, was the people. I don’t usually laugh for no reason. I was doing it every day while working for BaBaOH. And now, I really, really, miss that. D and B are perhaps the best people I have ever worked with.

And then… it was Friday. And magic happened. The freakishly-hot-ridiculously-non acoustic-overgrown-classroom miraculously turned into a… auditorium. The lights came on, and there was magic. The lists became surprisingly short. The penguins and I looked at each other in astonishment. We congratulated ourselves on our efficiency. Frankly, we had never thought the day would come. We went home, exhausted, but we could not sleep.

The first show was horrifying for the two penguins who were not on stage. The sound was terribly off, and disgruntled VPs and members of the audience would shoot dark looks at us as they passed us on their way out of the doors. A few came over, and gave us a very clear opinion of what they thought. The play ran late, we had put too many chairs, the room was freakishly hot.

For the second show, I decided to chuck it all, and sat at the lighting desk, my back turned to the retarded philistines who may want to walk out. The other penguin was right at the back, by the sound desk. That show made it worth it. It settled every single doubt in my mind. The stories flowed past, the lights danced on stage. I was happy. I was a part of this big, mad adventure, and I had seen it through. It existed because I was part of it, it had been changed by me, and I by it. There were no words. I was just inexplicably happy.

Today, I walked into F21 to find it sparkling clean. H had sucked the remains of the play out the room. The place was its brightly lit ugly self again. The magic was gone. It was empty. I did not feel the relief I had imagined, that I would get from actually having time to do the things I wanted. I felt lost, disoriented. Despite the work overload, the stress, the bitching, the convoluted hierarchies and processes, I miss it all.

I never quite knew it while it was happening, but BaBaOH was perhaps one of the best experiences of my life.

The penguin with the wacky ideas.

...

Last evening at nine forty five i felt content, looking forward to a week long (or probably more) of post play production work. as i walked down the street i looked back at F21 wondering whether i'd ever perform or touch the stage again. perhaps not. that's all i can write for now. more on its way.