tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-109516592024-03-13T17:20:52.452+05:30Little Shop of Random ThoughtsThe western musical Little Shop... the quintessential Indian Potti Kadai... the Arabic musical form Maqamat... how do they combine with my Blog? Discover... Welcome home.Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.comBlogger148125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-26016175077724854482021-03-22T00:48:00.003+05:302021-03-22T00:48:37.772+05:30<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT-aPunWpnWStQBCG5OCw0XtqviMFMK43I6qMSvF7gWLx3ts6oVUcZX79EV444BFhPZmVa7JcnEwoVhQIlEoljU1VVlCFXpnwgRipMjrMnB_DlnSxi1kMwLohIs5eAuwR24CWGmQ/s1806/TU+Vertical.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1806" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT-aPunWpnWStQBCG5OCw0XtqviMFMK43I6qMSvF7gWLx3ts6oVUcZX79EV444BFhPZmVa7JcnEwoVhQIlEoljU1VVlCFXpnwgRipMjrMnB_DlnSxi1kMwLohIs5eAuwR24CWGmQ/w190-h320/TU+Vertical.jpeg" width="190" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px;">Chenai Art Theatre & Masquerade are Unlocking Theatre in Chennai</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">THEATRE UNLOCKED</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Chennai Art Theatre (CAT) and Masquerade – the Performance Group (Chennai), two of Chennai’s popular event producing companies, come together, for the first time, to host a SPECIAL WORLD THEATRE DAY EVENT.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">World Theatre Day is celebrated on MARCH 27<sup>th</sup> annually, since the 1960s, across the world in a big way. In Chennai too, city’s theatre groups have individually for the past few years celebrated MARCH 27<sup>th</sup>.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Masquerade started celebrating WORLD THEATRE DAY in the year 1997, when its Founder-Artistic Director, Dr. S. Krishna Kumar, came back from Berlin, after a stint at professional theatre in Germany, where he met international artists at a World Theatre Day celebration in 1996. Since then, Masquerade has celebrated World Theatre Day annually.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">This year, Masquerade joins hands with Chennai Art Theatre, headed by A. Charles & Gowtham Ganesan, to bring SIX of city’s prominent stage drama companies on this GRAND OCCASION.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">This is the largest coming together of city’s theatre groups in more than a year, since the city went into LOCKDOWN due to COVID-19.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">CAT & Masquerade are UNLOCKING THEATRE back to its LIVE status. Hence THEATRE UNLOCKED.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Over 6 performances on 26<sup>th</sup> & 27<sup>th</sup> (3 performances each day, at 4 pm, 6 pm and 8 pm), 6 city groups will stage the event.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">====================================================================================</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>THE SIX PLAYS AND DETAILS:</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">26<sup>th</sup> March – 4 pm – Naveena Koothupattarai presents <strong>BAHISHKAARA (Relegation) – in Tamil</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><u>Synopsis:</u></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Bahishkaara (Relegation)</strong> brings together the untold stories of unsung heroes from the great Indian epic. The play seeks to unearth the tales of Duryodhana, Aravaan, Shikandi and a few other overlooked yet salient characters through music and dance.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Conceived & Directed by Aadhira Pandilakshmi & Sathish</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><span style="color: #ef6c6c;">Running Time: 45 minutes (approximately)</span></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Tickets here: Checkout <a href="https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/bahishkaara-relegation/ET00308214" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #8ab459; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/bahishkaara-relegation/ET00308214</a> </strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">=============================================================================</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">26<sup>th</sup> March – 6 pm – Narjaya presents <strong>PASI (Hunger) – in Tamil</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><u>Synopsis:</u></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">A man, a woman and abundance of time. It’s funny, it’s scary and it’s real.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">‘Pasi’ is a Tamil absurdist fiction written by Padmasri. Indira Parthasarathy, who is the only Indian writer to have won both the Sangeet Natak Academy and the Sahitya academy award. Crafted in a space supended from time, ‘Pasi’ (hunger) is a play to look forward to.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Cast: <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Kamatchi Kaleeswaran & Karthik Gowrisankar</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Written by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Indira Parthasarathy</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Directed by <span style="color: #ef6c6c;">Karthik Anantharaman</span></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><span style="color: #ef6c6c;">Running Time: 45 mins (approximately)</span></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Tickets Here:</strong> <strong><a href="https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/pasi-hunger/ET00308217" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #8ab459; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/pasi-hunger/ET00308217</a> </strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">========================================================================================</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">26<sup>th</sup> March – 8 pm – Veshadharis present <strong>ASHWATTHAMA – in Tamil</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><span style="color: #ef6c6c;">Synopsis:</span></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Is Ashwatthama still alive?</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">A delusional depiction of a meeting between Ashwathama and Parikshit the last heir Pandavas… Come and witness the battle of gratitude and grief… with a dose of contemporary overtones and satirical humour</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Written by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Chandrasekar Venkataraman</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Directed by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Sudarsun & Chandrasekar</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><span style="color: #ef6c6c;">Running Time: 45 mins (approximately)</span></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Tickets Here:</strong> <strong> <a href="https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/ashwatthama/ET00308213" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #8ab459; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/ashwatthama/ET00308213</a></strong> </p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">========================================================================================</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">27<sup>th</sup> March – 4 pm – Stagefright Productions present – <strong>COFFEE – in English</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><u>Synopsis</u></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Three couples, three different conversations and coffee. Some humorous, some hilarious, some whacky! Sure to leave you entertained!</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Title: <strong>A Love Story</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Written by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Rajesh Rajamani</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Performed by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Vinithra Madhavan Menon and Abishek Joseph George</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Directed by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Sandeep John</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Title: <strong>Arranged</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Written by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Belinda Peter and Zubin Vincent</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Adapted from <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Holidays! by Ethan Tucker</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Performed by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Susan Jacob and Zubin Vincent</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Directed by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Zubin Vincent</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Title: <strong>Surprise</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Directed by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Deepa Nambiar</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><span style="color: #ef6c6c;">Running Time: 45 minutes (approximately)</span></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Tickets Here: <a href="https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/coffee/ET00308215" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #8ab459; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/coffee/ET00308215</a> </strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">========================================================================================</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">27<sup>th</sup> March – 6 pm – MASQUERADE presents <strong>G.O.M.D… (Of Gods, Girls, Graves) – in English</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><u>Synopsis:</u></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">A woman, Goddess nonetheless… A man, a grandson with a duty… and their gripes and coffin tales! Two hilarious takes on marriages, affairs, legacies!</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Devised for stage / Directed by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">Krishna Kumar. S</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Running Time: 60 minutes (approximately)</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Tickets Here: <a href="https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/g-o-m-d-of-gods-girls-and-graves/ET00308216" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #8ab459; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/g-o-m-d-of-gods-girls-and-graves/ET00308216</a> </strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">========================================================================================</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">27<sup>th</sup> March – 8 pm – Theatre Arlequin presents <strong>THE HEART HAS ITS REASONS – in English</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><u>Synopsis:</u></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Two different scenarios…two variations on the same theme ….. quest for a soul mate !!! Or is it sole mate ? Come with your funny bones… if not with a mate.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><u>Titles:</u></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><span style="color: #ef6c6c;">The Language of Love : </span></strong>Language is essentially a tool of communication that should bring people together in an exchange of ideas. However some people use language to incite hatred or to hide the truth: politicians are masters in this. So sometimes it is necessary to invent a new language… especially for love.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><span style="color: #ef6c6c;">The Mating Game: </span></strong>Since time immemorial man’s quest for a mate has involved meandering in a tortuous labyrinth of relationships and lost chances. One wrong word or a gesture can break a burgeoning romance. So what is the secret to this mating dance? Perhaps it is just the hand of destiny!</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">Directed by <span style="color: #ef6c6c; font-weight: 700;">R. Amarendran</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong><span style="color: #ef6c6c;">Running Time: 55 minutes (approximately)</span></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Tickets Here: <a href="https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/the-heart-has-its-reasons/ET00308218" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #8ab459; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/the-heart-has-its-reasons/ET00308218</a> </strong></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">========================================================================================</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;"><strong>Each of the performances would be followed by a moderated audience Interface with the Director/Production Company </strong>(if the company is open to it!)</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", verdana, arial, helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 1.2em 0px;">For further details, buzz me (KK) at 9884029865 & A.Charles at 9841495497</p>Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com024, College Rd, Opposite Good Shepherd School, Subba Road Avenue, Nungambakkam, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600034, India13.0665422 80.2456839-15.243691636178845 45.0894339 41.376776036178846 115.4019339tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-50583799008450770712020-03-26T21:57:00.000+05:302020-03-26T21:57:39.183+05:30World Theatre Day 2020 <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Coming Soon @ Masquerade, Chennai</h1>
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<img alt="World Theatre Day 2020 - Masquerade Chennai " class="size-medium wp-image-797" data-attachment-id="797" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="img-20200326-wa00097821758520399662250.jpg" data-large-file="https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/img-20200326-wa00097821758520399662250.jpg?w=584" data-medium-file="https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/img-20200326-wa00097821758520399662250.jpg?w=300" data-orig-file="https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/img-20200326-wa00097821758520399662250.jpg" data-orig-size="1080,1080" data-permalink="https://masqueradechennai.wordpress.com/coming-soon/img-20200326-wa00097821758520399662250/" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/img-20200326-wa00097821758520399662250.jpg?w=300&h=300" srcset="https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/img-20200326-wa00097821758520399662250.jpg?w=300&h=300 300w, https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/img-20200326-wa00097821758520399662250.jpg?w=600&h=600 600w, https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/img-20200326-wa00097821758520399662250.jpg?w=150&h=150 150w" style="display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%;" title="World Theatre Day 2020 " /><div class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.923em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0.6em; outline: 0px; padding: 0.833em 0px 0.417em; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">
Masquerade presents World Theatre Day 2020</div>
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<a href="https://forms.gle/HGS5F36Jb8oYjNWi7" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; color: #278dbc; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">A FREE TO REGISTER</a>, public participation event, inviting artists and theatre enthusiasts to join in celebrating World Theatre Day. The day is being celebrated for the 22nd year in Chennai by Masquerade – the performance group, ChennaI. For more details on World Theatre Day, visit: <a href="https://iti-worldwide.org/worldtheatreday.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #278dbc; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">https://iti-worldwide.org/worldtheatreday.html</a></div>
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Some may say this is not the time to celebrate. But in times of contagion and life threatening crisis like this, if we do not celebrate life, and its ONE TRUE MIRROR, live theatre, when then?</div>
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It is our responsibility and privilege as artists to exhibit freedom… Come join us, the online stage is yours.</div>
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Public Performance Event<br />Genre: Any that you may choose<br />Duration : 1 to 10+ minutes (not exceeding 12 please)<br />Language : Tamil, English or Mime preferably (but any that you may choose)</div>
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PS: Nothing Filmy, or anything from films. Create your own original piece. WE WANT YOU TO BE YOUR ORIGINAL YOU. We want your theatrical talent to be featured, showcased. Please do grace our World Theatre Day celebrations with YOU.</div>
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This is not an age restricted event. Young talents are allowed too. Therefore, in public interest, Strictly please, no verbal or physical violence, political, personal or COVID19 propaganda statements.</div>
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REGISTRATION & PARTICIPATION FREE.<br />YOU CAN EVEN PARTICIPATE AS A DUO OR GROUP SO LONG AS YOU’RE ON SAME SCREEN AND HANDLE</div>
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To Register <a href="https://forms.gle/HGS5F36Jb8oYjNWi7" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; color: #278dbc; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a></div>
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Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com016, 4th Floor, Siddhartha Apartments, 43 CP Ramaswamy, Road, Abiramapuram, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600018, India13.0324101 80.257010611.3758851 -84.9773644 14.6889351 -114.5086144tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-49041634231075229642020-02-03T23:25:00.001+05:302020-02-03T23:25:34.073+05:30The Wailing Maid Junction<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-tDWjNlAXrI" width="480"></iframe>Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-27319908622886306452020-01-19T19:15:00.000+05:302020-01-19T19:15:07.539+05:30Calling the Cows by Mohan Narayanan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFTzyl3Ro2nB32_dD_kNrLGlKYpHcN_djuKZ-SEToMJXXBEo8_gj30khKW1-TQmtokdYnCmIjmquJvXtG0XwPE7G-cPdA0hpfF6jfZMT9U4PkTOvv5s06a97InIDWh-1205OSKbw/s1600/unnamed+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="529" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFTzyl3Ro2nB32_dD_kNrLGlKYpHcN_djuKZ-SEToMJXXBEo8_gj30khKW1-TQmtokdYnCmIjmquJvXtG0XwPE7G-cPdA0hpfF6jfZMT9U4PkTOvv5s06a97InIDWh-1205OSKbw/s320/unnamed+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbKVLYqKEnKqKp697dfCKW1qqDccxqqfl7on7DIW3jQNKPL_YAnctB9nFuGiD6Kkx5JbC8gXC-3LC-T0ZJovLp4jyJbGlqdARwMt9_z3I-xfwEw2FUjPBMKUdpOPZ4XvrDHsrh2Q/s1600/IMG_20190630_184423.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbKVLYqKEnKqKp697dfCKW1qqDccxqqfl7on7DIW3jQNKPL_YAnctB9nFuGiD6Kkx5JbC8gXC-3LC-T0ZJovLp4jyJbGlqdARwMt9_z3I-xfwEw2FUjPBMKUdpOPZ4XvrDHsrh2Q/s320/IMG_20190630_184423.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The book by Mohan Narayanan, his 7th work of fiction, is definitely worth a read. The premise is based on the Latin phrase that means You Become What You Eat. </div>
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What is interesting is the way he weaves his narrative: of course, Mr. Narayanan is known for interweaving of myths and legends across cultures. He is also known for his meticulous research based factual observations on scientific phenomenal influence on society at the crossroads of religious beliefs and inexplicable real time occurrences. In this work all these are present. However, what stands out is how all these combine within the space of a novella. </div>
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I'm not going to spill the story or its sensational ending, all of which makes for a terrific magical realistic movie potential in the same vein as say The Life of Pi. Suffice it to say, when the pipe is played, the speakers are turned on, when the calling starts and the cows start flying home....it gets visceral, you might as well be sitting in an IMAX, wearing 3D glasses, seeing the horns graze past your cheek, as they rush past you! A great, quick read if you just decide to travel, say an ICE from Berlin to Amsterdam or Munich to Paris Nord or Kobnhavn to Hamburg. It could well be a Shatabdi from Chennai to Bengaluru too. That is, if you set aside the nagging little proofing errors in spellings.</div>
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Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-82191244704365400262019-08-17T11:45:00.001+05:302019-08-17T11:45:34.489+05:30Let's Play Madras on August 22nd <p dir="ltr"><b>This Madras Day, on August 22nd, between 7 pm and 11 pm</b>… Experience Madras like never before and showcase how Madras-savvy you are!</p>
<p dir="ltr"><img src="https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/igpost1.jpg?w=584"></p>
<p dir="ltr">The Great Madras Board Game </p>
<p dir="ltr">To Register, Click <a href="https://m.facebook.com/events/2369879119939450">HERE</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>Event Description :</b></p>
<p dir="ltr">It’s AUGUST 22 – It’s MADRAS DAY – The Day this city was officially established as a little Trading Post off what’s today our own Marina Bay…<br>
And we are celebrating it WITH A BOARD GAME. For Once, we produce, you are the actors, ARE YOU WILLING TO STEP UP TO THE STAGE AND PLAY?<br>
Conceived over 12 years ago, in 2007, we’ve worked constantly on and off to get here… We’ve developed a BOARD GAME FOR YOU… THE GREAT MADRAS TRIP<br>
How well do you know your city?<br>
You think you’re a hard-core North Madras beast? You think the ECR and the OMR are the palm of your hands? Or are the creature that’s lost in CHENNAI without your Google Maps and GPS?<br>
Show us, strut your knowledge of WHAT WE CALL MADRAS and you call Chennai.<br>
BASIC GAME DESCRIPTION: You’re a traveller. We give you starting points to choose, we provide you the destination based on the origin. And you have to get there. You roll the dice, you strategise the route using modes of city transport we provide and a certain amount of resources to use. As you (and your partner – did we not say it’s a team of two game ? Oh my !!) explore the city, you’d come across challenges we pose (after all Mario and Luigi can’t get to Super Mario Central without challenges and obstacles, can they?). This is going to test your knowledge of Trivia and Heritage as well as the HISTORY OF THIS MARVELLOUS MADRAS… and of course, what is city traffic without situations that prompt delays and stuck-ups !</p>
<p dir="ltr">SOUNDS LIKE YOUR KIND OF FUN AND CONNECT WITH MADRAS?<br>
Sign up using the Google Form found in the link above! We’ve 3 slots of time, choose your time, come with your partner, pay your registration fee and you’re all set to Explore Madras.</p>
<p dir="ltr">WE ARE GAME, ARE YOU? LETS PLAY MADRAS….on THE GREAT MADRAS TRIP – 22nd AUGUST, 2019 (THURSDAY). </p>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-10231005141072387042019-05-16T15:06:00.000+05:302019-05-16T15:06:02.491+05:30TOTAL MOONSENSE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
... is a summer-time comedy play for all you who are 8 years old and above!<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>TOTAL MOONSENSE ? What's that ??</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inspired by James Thurber's classic short story "Many Moons" comes this TOTAL MOONSENSE </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Princess Lenore of Lenoress Town wants the Moon. And she falls sick. Yeh Dil Ki Baat Hai!!!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">From the good old time of doting Kings and lovable Princess, bumbling Jesters and bungling Prime Ministers (these days they are bumbling dime a dozen, don't they!!!)...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goofy Royal Magicians and Royal Mathematicians who can't get their numbers right... comes this story.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Add to this mix of bumbling characters in this comedy of errors our own INDIAN ASTROLOGER - Panchu Mama - and a bunch of travelling Bollywood shooting-stars!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's an approximate hour of riot we've lined up for you, your family and YOUR KIDS!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">TOTAL MOONSENSE that is not completely total non-sense!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the cast: Abhishek Ramabhadran, Aravind S, Ashvi KS, Krishna Kumar S, Pranav Diwakar, Priyanka Sankaran, Shrivatz A, Shubh Mukherjee, Utsav Raj, Varsha Varadarajan</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Script by KK</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Directed by Shrivatz Agaram</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>TICKETS - ₹ 200/-</b></span><br />
<b><br /></b><b>At CurioPlay, Alwarpet on 25th May (Saturday), 2019 - 5 pm and 7 p.m</b><br />
Available on Townscript here - <a href="https://www.townscript.com/e/total-moonsense-044144" target="_blank">BOOK TICKETS FOR TOTAL MOONSCRIPT </a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">For further details, call us at 9884029850 or email at bearandbeanbag@gmail.com</span></div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com03, Ananda Rd, Alwarpet, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600018, India13.0336239 80.254802400000017-12.4884106 38.946208400000017 38.5556584 121.56339640000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-84290734771425596052019-02-28T11:53:00.000+05:302019-02-28T11:53:39.250+05:30World Theatre Day 2019 - Presenting ANTIGONE...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We're excited. It's another WORLD THEATRE DAY. But for us it's not just another WTD this 2019. This is our 21st WTD celebrations, which we started back in 1998. And this WTD, on March 27, we fructify with our long-cherished production - ANTIGONE - adapted, devised and scripted putting together multiple sources that include but not limited to Sophocles, Hölderlin and Brecht...<br />
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The universality and contemporaneity of ANTIGONE is undeniable, and is resonant in today's war-torn, strife-ridden world as well as India, as ever.<br />
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EVENT: Performance of ANTIGONE<br />
Medium: Theatre performance<br />
Language: ENGLISH<br />
Duration: 70 minutes<br />
Date: 27 MARCH, 2019 (one performance only on its premiere)<br />
Venue: ALLIANCE FRANCAISE DE MADRAS, Chennai, India<br />
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Stay tuned here as well as <a href="http://masqueradechennai.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">here</a> for further details...</div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-61049281826950324992019-01-30T00:28:00.002+05:302019-01-30T00:28:48.030+05:30HOUDUNNIT - 3 short, comic thrillers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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An Illusionist swallowing razors, his niece, a young man in the audience - what's the connection?<br /><br />A woman, her husband, their new refridgerator - what's the connection? <br /><br />A young couple, a belt in their pooja room, their servant maid's husband - what's the connection? Piqued? <br /><br />Be there on Feb 2nd, 2019 ( 5:00 pm and 7.30 pm) to laugh, to be surprised, to be shocked in turns. HOUDUNNIT is a sure fire Houdini act! <br /><br />TICKETS - ₹ 200/-, available for Reservations at 9884029850 / 9884029866. <br /><br />Or online at: <br />www.eventjini.com/houdunnit <br /><br />https://www.townscript.com/e/houdunnit-3-short-very-different-comic-thrillers-012220 <br /><br />Email masquerade.madras@gmail.com for booking/blocking and more details. <br /><br />Celebrating our 24 years of journey, as we complete 24 and get ready to enter 25 - it's all been about community entertainment! Come join our celebration of theatre entertainment!<br /><br />In the cast: Ashvi K.S., Dhiraj Athreya, Dileep Rangan T, Jayashri Ramesh Sundaram, KK (Masquerade), Shakila Arun, Shrivatz (Steve) Agharam & Shubh Mukherjee<br /><br />Directed by Krishna Kumar S<br /><br />Be inside the Venue 15 minutes before the show time. STRICTLY NO FOOD OR BEVERAGE INSIDE THE VENUE. NO ENTRY ONCE THE PERFORMANCE STARTS. Ticket is non-refundable, non-transferable. IF LATE, AND ENTRY DENIED, PLEASE UNDERSTAND, DO NOT CREATE A SCENE, REACH OUT TO US LATER at masquerade.madras@gmail.com with HOUDUNNIT as Subject.<br /><br />We do not have Wheelchair Assistance nor the venue has Ramp.</div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-2043074598813354402018-03-22T17:36:00.001+05:302018-03-22T17:36:44.010+05:30WORLD THEATRE DAY 2018 @ Masquerade, Chennai<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This World Theatre Day...<br />
<br /> on March 27th, 2018...<br />
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We bring you one of our more popular shows... <strong>PARROT'S LIES</strong><br />
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Masquerade is entering 25 and we start our 25th season this WORLD THEATRE DAY - MARCH 27 - with a production we had mounted earlier in 2001 and 2006... We return to it, 12 years later...<br />
<strong><em>PARROT'S LIES...</em></strong><strong><em><br /> </em></strong><br /> An author has written a play for an actor, with whom he has scores to settle, and influences the Producer of their theatre company to cast the actor in the lead role. The actor seizes his chance, has a surprise in store for the artist. A Twist in the tale…<br />
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<strong><em>PARROT'S LIES</em></strong> is an expose of employees in the creative industry, constantly with knives on the backs of others, in a desperate attempt to regain their lost reputations. <strong>PARROT'S LIES</strong> is a wild and disgusting game of power, a horribly realistic representation of actions and gestures - acts of oppression and gestures of subjugation and genuflections.<br />
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The universal value and its contemporaneity is unmistakable...<br />
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Andreas Marber, born in 1961, is one of contemporary Germany’s respected and popular playwrights and dramaturge at the Nationalhaus (National Theatre) Hamburg. PARROT'S LIES had its Hamburg premiere in January 2001<br />
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The play has some strong language. Restricted to 16 years and above audience.<br />
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<strong><u>The Occasion:</u></strong> <strong> March 27<sup>th</sup> </strong>is universally celebrated as the <strong>World Theatre Day</strong> and Masquerade has been celebrating this day each year since 1996 in Chennai. Each year, we perform a production on this day in the company of other theatre artists as audience. We also open it out to general ticketed public. This year we also introduce to the larger theatre community Chennai’s one of its kind BLACK BOX STUDIO, located in ADYAR!<br />
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<strong><u>Venue:</u></strong> ALCHEMY BLACK BOX STUDIO, 8/69, 2<sup>nd</sup> Floor, Teacher’s Colony, Adyar (next to Indira Nagar Café Coffee Day)<br />
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<strong><em>The venue has a limited seating capacity of 70 seats only. Seating by first come first served. Ensure you have reserved your seats. Tickets may not be available at the box office at the venue.</em></strong><br />
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THE VENUE IS IN A DEAD-END WITH A NO PARKING AREA. HENCE, PARKING TO BE MADE IN THE ADJACENT STREETS FOR 4 WHEELERS. 2 WHEELER PARKING AVAILABLE AT THE BASEMENT OF THE VENUE. ONLY LIMITED 2 WHEELER PARKING. (Around 20 bikes)<br />
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ENTRY PASSES (Rs. 200/-) available at <a href="https://www.eventjini.com/parrotslies">https://www.eventjini.com/parrotslies</a> or by direct booking (call: 98840 29866)</div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-32493991321780762122017-10-02T12:12:00.000+05:302017-10-09T12:14:19.146+05:30Surendra Verma's FROM SUNSET TO SUNRISE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We Present to you...<br />
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On OCTOBER 7 & 8, 2017<br />
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At Spaces, Besant Nagar, CHENNAI<br />
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Time: 7:15 p.m<br />
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Duration: 1hr 50 mins (with 10 min. intermission)<br />
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All Are Welcome - Entry Free</div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0170/50, Aishwarya Colony 15th Cross St, Venkata Rathinam Nagar, Adyar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600020, India13.001317088128765 80.24956941604614313.000350088128766 80.248308916046142 13.002284088128764 80.250829916046143tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-38544913023346310302017-06-12T09:00:00.000+05:302017-06-12T09:00:35.088+05:30JANOSCH - The Tiger & Bear Tales for Children...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.masquerade.in/" style="color: #c7000e; text-decoration-line: none;">JANOSCH - The Tiger & Bear Tales</a></h3>
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<b>JUNE 18, 2017 - SUNDAY </b></div>
<br /><b><br /></b><b><br /></b><b>@ Spaces, Besant Nagar, Chennai, INDIA</b><br /><b>Two Shows: 5:30 & 7:30 p.m - 70+ mins duration - for audience 5+ years old...</b><br /><br /><img alt="The Bear&BeanBag Children's Theater, Chennai" class="alignnone wp-image-375" height="200" src="https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/bb1.jpg" width="159" /><br /><h3 style="margin: 0px; position: relative;">
<b>The Bear & Beanbag Children's Theater Company</b></h3>
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<b>a unit of</b></h4>
<img alt="masquerade" class="alignnone wp-image-387" height="57" src="https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/masquerade.jpg" width="219" /><br />presents...<br /><h2 style="color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.5em 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="color: blue;">JANOSCH</span></h2>
<span style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><strong>The Tiger and Bear Tales</strong></span><br /><strong><br /></strong><br /><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<img alt="Janosch - The TIger and Bear Tales" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-619" height="400" src="https://masqueradechennai.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/janoschweb-e1497236477432.jpg?w=212" width="282" /> </div>
<strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">About the performance:</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>Is it better to stay home with all the given comforts? Or a little adventure in getting around the world to get some perspective? Is that perspective worth the trouble of going around? Join the Bear and the Tiger on their adventure to THE LAND OF THEIR DREAMS... meet several lovely little friends they make on THE(IR) TRIP TO PANAMA...</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>And while we are on it... WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU RECEIVED A LETTER? Or have to forgotten the good old post card? Not the Tiger, not the Bea<span class="text_exposed_show">r... nor Aunty Goose. Explore a whole 'OLD' world of writing letters... a world where they still use a Phone as a Phone. Where a PHONE means a PHONE and does not come with Cameras for Selfies and Groupfies... A LETTER FOR TIGER... </span></b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>JOIN US AT SPACES (Elliot's Beach, Besant Nagar, Chennai, INDIA) for a show of JANOSCH... at 5:30 p.m and 7:30 p.m on SUNDAY the 18th June, 2017 with all your kids (yours, those in the neighbourhood and any and every kid you can bring along!)... and the KID IN YOU!</b></span><br /><div class="text_exposed_show">
<span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>It's a show for 5+. ALL ARE WELCOME!</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>DURATION: 70 mins.</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>Poster and Promo concept: Arvind R Vyaas</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>Costume Design & Conception: Mitra Visvesh</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>Accessories, Props, Animal Ears & Hood: Ashvi K.S. (Intern)</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>Assistance in Production & Backstage: Rohit Narayan and Akshita Iyer</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>Assistance in Direction: Arvind R Vyaas</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>Lighting, Sound & Artistic Direction: Krishna Kumar. S (KK)</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b><span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">Cast:</span> </b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>Pranav Dwaraknath (Little Bear), Madhumeeta B (Little Tiger)</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>Dhiraj Athreya, Shrivatz Agharam, Shriram Sivaramakrishnan & Vishal Vijayakumar</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><b>(Multiple Roles & Narration)</b></span><br />==============================================================</div>
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Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0Adyar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.0011774 80.25649569999995912.9702349 80.21615519999996 13.0321199 80.296836199999959tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-14918923740540442732017-03-29T12:29:00.002+05:302017-03-29T12:31:47.349+05:30Square Root of Sins Past - Premieres... 1st April, 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<dl class="wp-caption alignnone" data-mce-style="width: 944px;" id="attachment_586" style="-webkit-user-drag: none; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 16px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; text-align: center; width: 944px;"><dd class="wp-caption-dd" style="-webkit-user-drag: none; background: rgb(243, 246, 248); color: #4f748e; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; padding: 16px;"><em style="-webkit-user-drag: none;">A Devised production based on A Game of Dice, Urubhanga of Duryodhana, The Oath of Aswathama... from The Mahabharatha</em></dd></dl>
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<span data-mce-style="color: #000000;" style="color: white;"><strong style="background-color: black;">conceived by Krishna Kumar. S</strong></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="color: #000000;" style="color: white;"><strong style="background-color: black;">scripted by Shriram Sivaramakrishnan</strong></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="color: #000000;" style="color: white;"><strong style="background-color: black;">performance devised by Actors at Masquerade</strong></span></div>
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<strong><span data-mce-style="color: #0000ff;" style="color: blue;">Artistic Direction: Dr. S. Krishna Kumar</span></strong></div>
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Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-58775964615996355882017-01-03T13:43:00.000+05:302017-01-03T13:43:58.410+05:30The MYT Write Wing Mann-Ki Poetry Slam<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0RRibObUqw2Wy30L1JCxvZdTWlBsMNT_kUOOpygtTC06ZvjJXZldDCnb0zYJ4cEPTpPqAPp7d4UPDg5ASjM3pbSCvaczbUoMq3TgzeJHkUPZGGvz8NxWVQWODXyPYBwN5ZlApZg/s1600/Slam+Poetry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0RRibObUqw2Wy30L1JCxvZdTWlBsMNT_kUOOpygtTC06ZvjJXZldDCnb0zYJ4cEPTpPqAPp7d4UPDg5ASjM3pbSCvaczbUoMq3TgzeJHkUPZGGvz8NxWVQWODXyPYBwN5ZlApZg/s400/Slam+Poetry.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>
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Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0Adyar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.0011774 80.25649569999995912.9702349 80.21615519999996 13.0321199 80.296836199999959tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-55592771203179422932016-11-20T12:06:00.000+05:302016-11-20T12:06:42.216+05:30Antidisestablishmentarianism...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If systems are religious and become ritualistic and limnal, do not benefit the parish of learners, such systems must die; contributions and associations to such schools must stop; system must be deemployed if a complete cold reboot is not possible because the architecture resists such reboot designs. Church is but a metaphor in this post for any establishment. I have been witness to one such and was given a cold bath yesterday...<br />
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I've always known one cannot fly with turkeys; but, the moment of epiphany is when the realisation dawns that those around you are turkeys. At least, those ruling the roost are turkeys, Orwellian pigs and dogs that would piss on the blueprint when it is not conducive to their egoistic parasitism and predatorial social climbing instincts. You take a decision then: DO NOT fly with turkeys anymore.!<br />
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A system that is non-inclusive either at ideological or at practical level is what fuels factions, divisions, partitions; especially when that system harbours cheap ideas of reparations of perceived harms of the past, now that those ruling the roost for the day come to believe they have the power to abuse, however temporarily, to score a pyrrhic victory.<br />
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A system that does not want to encourage a pan-systemic fabric in the interests of all stakeholders, but only attempts to foster one in order to protect its interest is myopic. It only wants to include others at their own terms. Such a system is not interested in the long term development of a culture, but works to ensure that the power centre stays with the founders. Such a system is controlled periodically or cyclically by short-sighted minds that wants to ensure their relevance and is its own cancer.<br />
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We are living in such times under such systems from local to global, national to universal, notional to empirical. We are living in such matrices as need to be either overthrown or shirked. I was witness to one such very recently and one such that I WAS glad to be a part of and contribute to in the past; a system that is no more open to improvements but is mired in its own bog of physiological growth into bureaucracy that does not anymore aim to foster the growth of its ultimate, purported recipients: learners!<br />
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The founding fathers and mothers have long deserted in foresight, surrogate suppliants cyclically lord over ensuring the inorganic degeneration. The gods of rationale and wisdom too would soon desert them. Newer parallel systems would perhaps overtake. Pity to what could have been!</div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-66547605861292206632016-09-15T11:42:00.000+05:302016-11-20T11:45:45.430+05:30The Challenge Before Us Today...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What we need to teach the children today is the difference between reality and the ideal.<br />
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The ideal is to be sought after, striven for, even worked towards; however, it is also essential to show the children the need and importance of accepting reality (at its face value) and learn to live with it, in it.<br />
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There is nothing wrong in wanting everything and desiring to do that which only appeals to us. Though, the reality does not pan out that way; to accept their unwillingness to come to terms with the needs of reality and not wanting to do what they do not like to do, in the short or longer run, would eventually lead to delusions; to become unable to live life as it is and at its own terms; to be left behind; to become escapist and ultimately, as failures.<br />
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Failure in what sense: in a practical sense. Sometimes, thus, the visionaries of a system must accept that we need to thrust upon children what they may not like, but must learn to do, precisely because they do not know the need to be reality-compliant. To do is more important than to dislike. Else, the future is fragile!</div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-4526179990141508572016-09-10T22:02:00.000+05:302016-09-10T22:23:16.032+05:30Jose, his Posse and the £600 Million Derby<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMTbtKhHRLUQyma_xHIqfpXxqim2I1AMQRyCry0aD5n2JnHMh7rX3N_ywa773K86cYF7FbM9Hevii74jLSx6G0ZwHkQQNQhovjeI8et4TMDj3jfZeyW3G2wW6YE7dye5Ffg45Cug/s1600/JoMou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMTbtKhHRLUQyma_xHIqfpXxqim2I1AMQRyCry0aD5n2JnHMh7rX3N_ywa773K86cYF7FbM9Hevii74jLSx6G0ZwHkQQNQhovjeI8et4TMDj3jfZeyW3G2wW6YE7dye5Ffg45Cug/s320/JoMou.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Jose, his Posse and the £600 Million Derby</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;">“.…. Farewell, happy fields,</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;">Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;">Infernal world! And thou profoundest Hell,</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;">Receive thy new possessor - one who brings</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;">A mind not to be changed by place or time,</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;">The mind in its own place and in itself</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;">Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven,</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;">What matters where, if I be still the same,</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;">And what I should be, all but less than he</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;">Whom thunder had made greater?”</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These iconic lines from John Milton’s Paradise Lost resounded in my mind as I watched the GW4 mother-of-them-Derby-of-all… There was one moment… Goal # 2 for the once noisy neighbours… from the 19 year old Iheanacho, when all eyes were hopefully poised on another teenager, in Red: Marcus Rashford… It is a very fascinating study for the future how we are going to be witnessing these two blooming legends of Manchester. More interesting for me is how Rashford is so eulogised for those not too infrequent goals that do not very justify the whole 90 minutes he gets to play while Kelechi is always always subbed in the second half for a while and always always scores and assists or scorest/assists. But that is a stuff of discussion elsewhere. Back to the Derby, back to the moment! That very moment of Goal #2, the camera panned not to the Red side of touchline to show the managerial reaction, but to a wincing Sir Fergie in the stands, who knowingly and helplessly nodded his head. Epiphanic moment!<br /><br />In football, as in life, there are three types of managers: the Fergie type - God. Rules. Omnipotent. They hold the system by its proverbial balls; the Wenger type - Suave. Honest. Tireless like Boxer in Animal Farm. Convinced about his ideals, confused about priorities. They are the eternal romantics. They are the Dantons who could have changed the course of the French Revolution! And then there are the Archangels… after they fell. Made a demi-god by those on whose side they are, these are the managers everybody who is not a papparazzi and who is on the other side of the mystical lake of silverware love to hate because they are not on the right side.<br /><br />As a little digression, these other-siders also at times consider the greener grass on the banks of the lake as a result of septic tank fertility. Losers! But digressions aside, these Archangels before and after Fall… they sooner than later move from being The God’s Chosen Ones, from The Special One to the Falling One! You get the picture what or who this post is about!<br /><br />Back in the early Noughties of this Millennium, Paradise Beckoned. Silverwares won. Soon after, Paradise Lost. Then again Paradise Regained. And then… Paradise Replicated. It is an eternal Work in Progress, this Paradise business! And tiresome it can be… moving from the Theatre of ‘realised’ Dreams, getting from being burnt on The Bridge, to the Theatre of ‘high pressure’ Dreams. In doing so, you are entering a land of indolent race that is privileged to think of itself as a special race thanks to a glorious past.<br /><br />At the beginning was Porto. 2002. Then came The Bridge. Now the Theatre. It’s show time.<br /><br />One of the most charismatic trouble-magnets, ‘the choice and master spirit of (his) age,’ how will Jose Mourinho cope? At The Bridge, if Terry was the Captain Leader Legend, Mourinho was the Hero Villain Entertainer. His touchline rants and shunts with Pep and Wenger are stuff of saleable soundbytes. The special, not-so-perfect Ariel he was, his tantrums, grumbling, whining, moaning interviews, bullying and blame-games post-matches did not befit the role. More the Caliban! Most people came to think of Jose Mourinho as more of a Ruffian on the Stair who kept throwing stones at other’s windows than a Prospero of magic and miracles: every time, towards the end of his exit. Yes, one could see the pattern, the cycle, the mosaic. First the ascend. Then the glory. Soon it all went gory.<br /><br />If ever there was a concoction of heady Shakespearean enfant terrible, Jose it was. Iago in his unflinching beliefs, Macbeth in unrelenting ambition, Tubal in his taunts… but never a Hamlet. What a fall there was, gentlemen! His last days at The Bridge in 2014-15 made him a prattling Lear!!<br /><br />One wondered: what next! What awaits? Away from The Bridge, he wandered around like Kaspar, the lost child of Europe, with the Albatross round his neck, like a mad-eyed Mariner. He was even being hazardously accused of spoiling the Eden. And then came the rumours. Who will be his Professor Daumer? Pep was headed to the noisy neighbourhood, Klopp was at the Kop, whither Jose? Haunting the streets of London, he was sighted by The Sun and the Daily Mail sparing saucy soundbytes.<br /><br />Finally, the Glazers showed up. The Spoilt Ones, desperate to regain the Championship seat and lost glory, saw in him the Saviour. And thus… Manchester United Ho! Between him and the Castle stand several Bowzers: Guardiola, Klopp, Conte, Poch, Koeman… and some keen and lesser mortals with hidden spanners! And that man, who like Count Vlad, now that he’s tasted blood, would want another shy - the Professorial Ranieri. What ho, Claudio!<br /><br />At the time of getting minted, the Derby has already been lost. We wonder what the post-conference wine would taste like!!<br /><br />Will Jose? Will he not? He has the arms, ammunitions and the tanks this time. Would there be fighting or just grumbling, whining, moaning, bullying touchline skirmishes, blaming umpires and linesmen… and some more grumbling, whining, moaning etc? The Special One has the Talented but ageing Wayne, the Tireless Juan, the self-proclaimed Legend Zlat, the Emerging Marcus and some more. It can’t be that difficult, with the sensible Armenian too!!! Let’s wait and watch, the game is on. Will it be all talks R.I.P or another W.I.P? Would he say…<br /><br />“What matters where, if I be still the same,<br />And what I should be, all but less than he<br />Whom thunder had made greater?”<br /><br />Would he? After all…<br /><br />The mind in its own place and in itself<br />Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.<br /><br />The signs are encouraging. The start looks promising. It’s up to him and his posse. C’mon, Jose!</span></div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-89088352244463625562016-02-18T10:30:00.002+05:302016-02-18T10:30:59.230+05:30Our strange democracy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A lot of razzmatazz is being thrown into the JNU issue. It is plain and clear that the minority Opposition has once again managed to upstage the actual issue. Umar Khalid has quietly gone off the radar, Kanhaiya Kumar has been pushed to the center of the storm conveniently for the anti-BJP Inc. to mount an assault on the Parliament precinct with the next election in mind. The actual issue of Afzal Guru, the Kashmir separation agenda, separatist propaganda on Indian soil by Kashmiris (who in this case did not come from JNU and consider themselves Kashmiris not Indians and hence any expression by them in Delhi or any other part of India that is not Kashmir is anti-national activity, since they aim it so!) have all been quietly consigned to non-issue. As usual a lot of importance to the (secondary) messenger is being given and everyone is aiming their guns at the messengers and the recipients, rather than the sender of this missive. </div>
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Today it ridiculously has come to the state that a lot of Indian citizens want to question and debate on the notion of What is India? At a time when we must be, like China and Japan, South Korea and other progressive nations, be discussing the one-point of agenda of how to make our nation strong, these politicians with nothing else but political divisiveness on their minds are opportunistically manipulating this freedom of expression thingie. Is this required? Have we become so reactionary, emotionally susceptible to being brainwashed by the political forces who really do not care for the existing national identity purely because it is not convenient that they are not in the seat of power? Do we even have the spine to call ourselves rational beings, falling for these cheap-tricks by phoney cardsharps who claim themselves the good samaritans of the country? Is this democracy?</div>
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A democracy, by definition, is that where there is opportunity and scope for peoples of all genders, faiths and classes to participate in the majority. Now the situation we have is this: one group that has been in the majority is afraid that another group MAY become equal if not insidiously dominant; their case is vindicated by the example of Kashmir; then there is another group that has so long been on the minority because, at some point, their founding fathers wanted to shy away from forming the core of nation-building when they had the opportunity and reinvented the wheel aka Pakistan. A majority of this minority that did not fit their vehicle with the reinvented wheel, lives in the rest of the country besides Kashmir, wants to have equal if not dominant status. However, their heart is rent between fighting for the majority status quo of the majority minority, viz their Kashmiri brethren, than changing their own minority minority status quo into equal majority. Inside this scenario we have the majority and the minority fighting on religious preferences than economic. Looking at this conundrum from the periphery, there is a third group, who has no ideals, credo or canons but a vote-bank sense of ruler ship and manipulates the sentiments of the minority, the which the periphery successfully divided into two different minority. Now it is altogether a different matter that the second minority, that has been made to live with delusions as the real minority, is the majority in some states. So how do we get out of this state? </div>
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Get the third party out. This sounds like the story of the cat that helped the two monkey come to a conclusion on how best to share their food, right? Of course, the third party had given us a sense of themselves as the center of gravity. But 'things fall apart, the center cannot hold... the beast turned towards (proverbial Bethlehem and had) its Second Coming.' As a result, sanity and sense of order was restored and the periphery was dumped back to the margins. With it trying to claw back to center, it is time for the original two to come together and stay together. A start has been made. All reconciliations are difficult to start with, but if persisted with, will settle down given time and patience. Hope similar starts can happen in Assam and elsewhere in North-East too!</div>
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Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-73181181972234199472016-01-26T11:00:00.000+05:302016-02-18T10:35:05.180+05:30Musing about random ideas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Everyone says, when they are slighted or appalled by anything they think is wrong with society, 'What? In this day and age? In 21st Century...!'<br />
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I ask: What is this forced mystique about 21st century? Is it just a number in the mind? Isn't everything in the mind? If it's not 21st century, is it OK to have those whatever-malaises the people, the press asks the so-called oppressed or denied or marginalised about?<br />
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We used to say, how can evils persist. This is 20th Century. Now it is 21st Century? Does the passage of time automatically mean progressive minds?</div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-62926869310641563352016-01-09T11:30:00.000+05:302016-03-04T23:53:51.608+05:30Henrietta Horn - Contemporary Tanztheater Artist<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The second person I am featuring here is Ms. Henrietta Horn - the famed Tanztheater artist from Germany. She was the co-artistic director at the Folkwang Tanzschule Essen of Pina Bausch alongside Pina Bausch from 1999 - 2008 as biography would show. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Alc1T_CY66T0Rr4ngpCuWw0HWE8zg6VYX05uA8WGxTmQW4Gcx1FK6kZNo-88QnEO5AQXaBPsf4DYXIzyuH74ZroVrqi1JeAXOI1JmgppNzWLMGr5J_MC1sCVQRyKaRPiu3GRXQ/s1600/Henrietta+Horn.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Alc1T_CY66T0Rr4ngpCuWw0HWE8zg6VYX05uA8WGxTmQW4Gcx1FK6kZNo-88QnEO5AQXaBPsf4DYXIzyuH74ZroVrqi1JeAXOI1JmgppNzWLMGr5J_MC1sCVQRyKaRPiu3GRXQ/s200/Henrietta+Horn.jpeg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdkgEPA97NsDIEeAFwVeRSe9xG18dLvyuXFSrLBnNnt9sca5HUmQ1UztsuaxJoxmst7bbwfABp8XHTDSvHZEQoqqiG9w3KNL16ndhJaA1K7ZAvLTiF8TRXxUFJb0hYBDMC4bFmvQ/s1600/HenriettaHorn.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdkgEPA97NsDIEeAFwVeRSe9xG18dLvyuXFSrLBnNnt9sca5HUmQ1UztsuaxJoxmst7bbwfABp8XHTDSvHZEQoqqiG9w3KNL16ndhJaA1K7ZAvLTiF8TRXxUFJb0hYBDMC4bFmvQ/s200/HenriettaHorn.jpeg" width="200" /></a><br />
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I do not know her personally. I was once introduced to her at the lawns of Max Mueller Bhavan at KNK by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/prasannarama">Prasanna Ramaswamy</a> very briefly when she was in Madras and presented three of her solo pieces at a very casual evening in front of a few select audience. I do not remember the year a-tall...</div>
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Then in 2004, I had the fortune of being at Duesseldorf for 4 months, visiting and associating with theatre artists and artists in general all round NRW area. On Dec 8th or 10th I do not remember exactly, I was at Essen to watch Ms. Horn's Artichokes in Silver Sea - one of her lighter works, she being a quite intense artiste - as part of the Essen-Werden Tanzfest. It was a pure delight later after the show when I went backstage and met her briefly and got her autograph at the back of this little showbill.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKGW6jFS8rZbz3xVbiFNBJs3f-FWmJrRvmeq72qtR-zUAd_BEN19DWOc6NcuC-xqRXhobUtuuvbiSTu_na_Pd7rQYmbO3yNQesoK2LBmkKqm6o78O_Xt6oWfpII-WapBmiqnMTwA/s1600/WIN_20160109_092730+%25282%2529.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKGW6jFS8rZbz3xVbiFNBJs3f-FWmJrRvmeq72qtR-zUAd_BEN19DWOc6NcuC-xqRXhobUtuuvbiSTu_na_Pd7rQYmbO3yNQesoK2LBmkKqm6o78O_Xt6oWfpII-WapBmiqnMTwA/s200/WIN_20160109_092730+%25282%2529.JPG" width="134" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-EpecUn2OYYmt-7gPrm1Fv5X0rwpnSa-dUyP1DY-cwzuXdp5Qc8QumzyxJNvrneJeVnZ9nvd2AvsxEpy59kGQNKKNhR0bXA43zL39VzemiN_YaRL_h0SYIIREfPfmbsBdu2DOWQ/s1600/WIN_20160109_092711+%25282%2529.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-EpecUn2OYYmt-7gPrm1Fv5X0rwpnSa-dUyP1DY-cwzuXdp5Qc8QumzyxJNvrneJeVnZ9nvd2AvsxEpy59kGQNKKNhR0bXA43zL39VzemiN_YaRL_h0SYIIREfPfmbsBdu2DOWQ/s200/WIN_20160109_092711+%25282%2529.JPG" width="140" /></a><br />
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Thanks Prasanna-ma. It was a fantastic 4 months visiting K-20 and K-21 and other places, getting to see the works of masters such as the whole Expressionistic canon, Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian... (the list is very long) in person, at touching distance. Thanks to Frau Rahimi who was the head at MMB then. KNK MMB brings a lot of flooding memories! The reason why I pulled this out is a bit oblique. I received invite from Mr. Sadhanand Menon for the recent exhibition at Spaces. Thinking of the great legend Ms. Chandralekha led me to think of only one other person I know - Prasanna-ma, which inevitably for some reason led me to think of Pina Bausch (I remember fondly doing a lot of odds and bits backstage work during Nelken - Carnations - India tour of Pina Bausch & Co back in 90s) and in turn triggered this memory of meeting Henrietta Horn.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaIl-zvjYgkNkd_WPVEV01f1EmZdZYOxAyOhve5RiM2USZ4phqGrP1zwUGj8lkktxUlnBwp5yleNCiT6m5SvweV8KewwoPo24hnhPSJlbwdx2JF-ddt2eVNXrCs_cgnzFzcYhwig/s1600/HornHenrietta.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaIl-zvjYgkNkd_WPVEV01f1EmZdZYOxAyOhve5RiM2USZ4phqGrP1zwUGj8lkktxUlnBwp5yleNCiT6m5SvweV8KewwoPo24hnhPSJlbwdx2JF-ddt2eVNXrCs_cgnzFzcYhwig/s200/HornHenrietta.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641001, India11.0168445 76.95583209999995211.0168445 76.955832099999952 11.0168445 76.955832099999952tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-33251549452678245022016-01-09T10:28:00.000+05:302016-03-04T23:58:23.744+05:30The Portrait of a Photographer as an Artist - Mohan Das Vadakkara<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Today, my walk down the past lane takes me to putting in front of a whole new generation of young audience two people. The first person I introduce here. The second one in another separate post. </div>
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One I have very personal acquaintance with and have had the opportunity of laughing, kidding around, fighting, having my works watched, analysed, photographed, videographed.... and whom a whole lot of Madras artists are familiar with. I consciously use the word Madras, even though you could have noticed my posts refer to my beloved city more as Madras and only when talking of contemporary inevitables as Chennai. No artist who has walked the Theatre in specific and Arts scene in the city will be unfamiliar with his work or him in person. A very genial, humble and knowledgeable person, I fondly call him as padakkaaran... Mohan Das Badagara. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgItA0t4c2Wumuzw_nh0eDIq6wjBBCzIuuDsOJV9orZR1nAs4kzkVIt_YsPVv8fDrbDMAXM4YIOKY92VzmzrnEZvVH-nvoJhD1npX6PbdddBrri-3EyB6oSBLOjh1KSLl6zJmL4hQ/s1600/Mohan+Das+Vadakkar.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgItA0t4c2Wumuzw_nh0eDIq6wjBBCzIuuDsOJV9orZR1nAs4kzkVIt_YsPVv8fDrbDMAXM4YIOKY92VzmzrnEZvVH-nvoJhD1npX6PbdddBrri-3EyB6oSBLOjh1KSLl6zJmL4hQ/s200/Mohan+Das+Vadakkar.jpg" width="150" /></a><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;">The accompanying photos are from a random album of his I chanced upon to take along with me, when Max Mueller Bhavan cleared up from KNK to its current residence. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDbYg-NEXAhIXjdEFLWTSqCy_qEEgTlTSUAVqBU23pE0SyqZv8YhchTZ-dkD0KU_SGTZLi3xmlU12uCgso0OeClLtCc0mqECHYvSA1s6fYdm7nvc5zZTPF3iQbqe3YQUqV_FUVDQ/s1600/WIN_20160109_093931+%25282%2529.JPG"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDbYg-NEXAhIXjdEFLWTSqCy_qEEgTlTSUAVqBU23pE0SyqZv8YhchTZ-dkD0KU_SGTZLi3xmlU12uCgso0OeClLtCc0mqECHYvSA1s6fYdm7nvc5zZTPF3iQbqe3YQUqV_FUVDQ/s200/WIN_20160109_093931+%25282%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicePJHnpswwGl90bOsdVG0q1nmG7nxxq6ihamzyX5osLsSZ0oqml5vL6Zr2bkejjdBZUZNTk22sAmQcyREzP26KhJMl4PV2vHVZ-aqhqrQDAyTApp7ngt4TMWW7l75TteMR7wi8g/s1600/WIN_20160109_094125+%25282%2529.JPG"><img border="0" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicePJHnpswwGl90bOsdVG0q1nmG7nxxq6ihamzyX5osLsSZ0oqml5vL6Zr2bkejjdBZUZNTk22sAmQcyREzP26KhJMl4PV2vHVZ-aqhqrQDAyTApp7ngt4TMWW7l75TteMR7wi8g/s200/WIN_20160109_094125+%25282%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHEYdrznvkd3JE7xhq_1TqmHNosnWprG-edwZQGtMQ0PKKuW0GtD0AAnpYuZFJQ5EcmBTadkeaueaLq10wZfpyOWWLQ2dujIMRD9wKcMZwPuaD85TxolK12Ur-uNLQHvRXcpBdKw/s1600/WIN_20160109_094248+%25282%2529.JPG"><img border="0" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHEYdrznvkd3JE7xhq_1TqmHNosnWprG-edwZQGtMQ0PKKuW0GtD0AAnpYuZFJQ5EcmBTadkeaueaLq10wZfpyOWWLQ2dujIMRD9wKcMZwPuaD85TxolK12Ur-uNLQHvRXcpBdKw/s200/WIN_20160109_094248+%25282%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikeZPdkpIELjZAw7A6FmfbPAud_h7qYnaPtS965sJndMCtk7lCZoNM7eC1iJ5UmEROqeRjRnXr5W6ieajDVYARFg-fFWIji5GLEJh02gsSj0XwVOlIdTpCdEr363WIy8arxUIjXw/s1600/WIN_20160109_094407+%25282%2529.JPG"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikeZPdkpIELjZAw7A6FmfbPAud_h7qYnaPtS965sJndMCtk7lCZoNM7eC1iJ5UmEROqeRjRnXr5W6ieajDVYARFg-fFWIji5GLEJh02gsSj0XwVOlIdTpCdEr363WIy8arxUIjXw/s200/WIN_20160109_094407+%25282%2529.JPG" width="200" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Vuf3KJ1n5dlnAInEmQSbLMhdzpRdawf8Mb3FjnezPUU2zJMGe6voi70ysoFeFP-wib8q4bs4PUOGfsDjMRBuRmIsR0P0td7O3XVRJ-UJa2Ko1q26II2OICkLwqUt3RlC-VW5Ug/s1600/WIN_20160109_094442+%25282%2529.JPG"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Vuf3KJ1n5dlnAInEmQSbLMhdzpRdawf8Mb3FjnezPUU2zJMGe6voi70ysoFeFP-wib8q4bs4PUOGfsDjMRBuRmIsR0P0td7O3XVRJ-UJa2Ko1q26II2OICkLwqUt3RlC-VW5Ug/s200/WIN_20160109_094442+%25282%2529.JPG" width="127" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrrZ-9GmjHwuQTy8hOpQOoJgIYrcP8yjBXwf6v9bGQiAVEhBf-z1BbXyQZ5pnV-38yjW6-q0-msFO4WrKQVQ3pKj8a8gk0R3JIyurrBddhPtzQmfdSRLdPp46cAj72rRuGlyHSBQ/s1600/WIN_20160109_094151+%25282%2529.JPG"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrrZ-9GmjHwuQTy8hOpQOoJgIYrcP8yjBXwf6v9bGQiAVEhBf-z1BbXyQZ5pnV-38yjW6-q0-msFO4WrKQVQ3pKj8a8gk0R3JIyurrBddhPtzQmfdSRLdPp46cAj72rRuGlyHSBQ/s200/WIN_20160109_094151+%25282%2529.JPG" width="131" /></a><br />
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I bought a horde of German books for pittance, was gifted a horde of books - both in German and in English by a lot of Heads there from Herr Augustin, Herr Schindler, Frau Behlke, Frau Wetzkubach, Frau Rahimi.... as and when they left Madras for another pasture. Also, when MMB moved from KNK they were throwing away such a load of things because 1) they were old, anachronistic 2) they couldn't find place for those 3) the new place was getting digitised. So, like many a person, I also became richer with books, posters, media. </div>
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One of those riches in the middle of rags was this album by Mohan Das. It is a simple collection of faces and places. I haven't met him in a while. Am sure he is quietly around at rehearsals, film festivals, art shows, theatre performances clicking away like there is no tomorrow, unassumingly, as he always does. He always tells me the need to buy printed photos, burned DVDs of performances in preservable copy saying "pinnaale venumna kedaikaadhumaaa.... negatives enga pogumnu solla mudiyaadhu, tapes enge pogum, memory card eppo erase aagum..." (later if you need you won't get, negatives and raw data files being erasable!). So I believed him and I BELIEVE HIM because after 25 years of being around, I realise the importance of old materials. I have materials - books, show tickets, fliers, program bills, souvenirs, photographs I myself took, bus tickets on the back of which several artists drew casual sketches and threw away which are documents now, plain paper sheets and tissue papers on which people like Mitran (Devanesen) and others drew stage and set first sketches.... so on and so forth. From 60s (when I hadn't even started taking firmer steps)... till 2006. After that I stopped collecting except those I own from my company. There are too many artists in the business now to keep track of and I lost the excitement of watching many of the theatre shows because they are purely of no aesthetic value to me and commerce never really excites me. </div>
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Anyway, back to Mohan Das. I have some old random pictures. I hope you enjoy these. Some of these have solid history behind them. Notice how his places and facades have the same personality and character as some of the faces he captured. PLEASE FEED ME YOUR THOUGHTS AND VISIT HIS FB PAGE AND GIVE HIM A PAT FOR HIS UNFLINCHING STAND. He's been a very unassuming but steadfast soldier among people of his tribe. Like an artist refusing to budge to the demands of commoditisation making aesthetic works even when there is no cash in the bank or gas in the vehicle tank, he has been plugging away stolidly. As against a lot of photographers I have known started with lofty ambitions and have ended up shooting all kind of things and people for the lure of filthy lucre indiscriminately, Mohan Das is an artist among photographers in the same breath as a lot of documentary film makers, theatre directors who choose their work with a certain politics at heart and mind. Soldier on Badagara...</div>
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Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641001, India11.0168445 76.95583209999995210.767464 76.633108599999957 11.266224999999999 77.278555599999947tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-41173573900571810692015-12-31T10:14:00.000+05:302016-02-18T10:15:37.742+05:30The fallacy of our nuclear policy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last evening my daughter received a copy of The Wings of Fire by APJ as prize for creative writing at school. I've read the book before and was not impressed. So I don't own a copy because I never wanted to own one. I tried reading it again and found it boring and overrated. I simply can't stand these Chicken Soups, Management mantras or Inspirational crap. Also, I think the man himself is overrated, revered and venerated as he may. I realise the dangers of such sweeping statements as I have made. However, two things strike me. In the aftermath of a news item I read about <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/30/marshall-islands-sue-britain-india-and-pakistan-over-nuclear-weapons" target="_blank"><b>Marshall Islands</b></a>. a) What really are his achievements? What is really patriotism? Do we misconstrue reactionary and emotionally-spiked nationalism for a false sense of Patriotism? If he is the nuclear man of India, then by the same token why should we hate the nuclear men of other nations? Are we implicitly arm twisted by our netas to buy nuclear warfare and thus be made unwitting perpetrators of genocide, in the same way the world paints every German of Nazism? Another important inference is the implicit acceptance of the superiority of science over arts and humanities in Indian society. b) The gullibility of captive hero-worshipping audience and reading public. </div>
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We have the tendency of ostriches when it comes to bringing the faults of a hero under the microscope and shoot the messenger instead of verifying the message. We look at morals conveniently from the point of people than issues. From mythologies to modern narratives, the discourses are dominated by figures than facts... our collective consciousness is warped in a sense of points of views of those who speak than what is spoken. Every acceptance of a figure as figure-head is a statement of acceptance that a truth has been buried. Any amount of justification that nuclear use is in the interests of national need cannot negate the stockpile alarm which is in the non-interest of global danger.</div>
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Civilian needs have non-nuclear alternatives we defer to look at. Thus, the title of the book is not some fancy and proverbial chicken soup for souls needing inspiration, but an innuendo to the nuclear arms race via rocket science. Are we a peace-loving nation? Makes me think. I'm going to be thinking this out a long time!</div>
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Before, we wind this up, let me give a bit of info about Marshall Islands that I linked at above. Marshall Islands, officially referred to as the <b><a href="http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/oceania/mh.htm" target="_blank">Republic of Marshall Islands</a></b> (RMI) is a group of small islands (more a grouping of nearby and sporadic atolls) located halfway point between Hawaii islands and Australia, if we travelled East from Equator.With an estimated population of approx. 70,000 inhabitants in 2014, this group of islands is also home to 800 species of fish and 160 corals. It is not to difficult to see that this like a lot of islands that include more popular ones like Maldives is sinking slowly due to rising water levels, thanks largely to global warming. I do not think I would go to the extent of assuming my readers are daft enough that I need to expound on how global warming is caused, one of which is definitely nuclear arms race. So, there is the context. There is the content. There is the man. There is the hypothesis, inference and conclusion.</div>
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Meanwhile, check this latest on Marshall Islands: </div>
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Drought in the Marshall Islands</h1>
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The Pacific Island nation has declared a state of national emergency.</div>
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For more on this story, go <b><a href="http://thediplomat.com/2016/02/drought-in-the-marshall-islands/" target="_blank">here</a></b></div>
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Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-2282987393116994072015-11-26T21:55:00.002+05:302015-11-26T23:05:57.471+05:30The Need to develop Critical Thinking in our School Educational system<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I often wonder...</div>
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Our system is so wonderful in producing the best of rank holders and learners until their secondary education. After that, what happens to the magic? Does the pixie dust of learning wear off? Where do our students fail when they go out on to the graduated wide big bad world of reality and employment? Why do they fail in GDs inspite of subject knowledge? Is there a gap in their subject knowledge constructs? This is when I stumbled upon two terms:</div>
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Now what are these? They sound too complicated for an untrained mind or a simple passenger in the train of education - be it student, parent, teacher or just people!</div>
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Wikipedia describes <b><i>Cognitive Psychology</i></b> thus:</div>
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'Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes such as "attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and thinking." Much of the work derived from cognitive psychology has been integrated into various other modern disciplines of psychological study, including educational psychology, social psychology, personality psychology, abnormal psychology, developmental psychology and economics.'</div>
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As for <b><i>Desirable Difficulties</i></b>, it is nothing actually new to our culture of education. We always had it. The pre-90s or pre-80s learners had a benchmark for the level of difficulty at which their learning took place. This challenged them, rather than forced them, to push their thresholds of learning. Even during the pre-dominantly State Board regulated curricula, without CCE etc, our boundaries and frontiers of learning were challenged and we strove, gamely. This toughened us. May be it was a swim, survive or sink situation. However, it toughened the guts in us. This has changed today. We are on a soft system that as one of the Neil Simon characters says in one of his plays, "Even baby powder hurts!"</div>
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May be the 90s and new millennium parents have complicated the lives of the 90s and new millennium learners by simplifying it in the name of reduction of workload, bagload, bookload etc. Basically, they have pampered their kids. So when the school or the teachers grumble in response to claims and accusations of corporal punishment by students or their parents even for the perceived casual contact of fingertips on a student, they usually claim: "Didn't we go through harsher predicament when we were in school? Our teachers beat us with scales, did we grumble to our parents? How many days have we been made to kneel in shorts or skirts, our knees in direct contact with the stone flooring in the hot sun out in the open? Have we ever complained to our parents, making them rush to school to meet the teachers? Have we not been pinched to bleeding for not submitting a homework or coming late to school or talking to our benchmates during a lecture or made to stand up on a bench or stand out of the class in the corridor? Did our parents ever know or even if they knew, had they ever taken cudgels at the PTA?"</div>
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Well, all these are fine and dandy. Parents say, "We went through all these or less... or perhaps more, yes! But does that mean our kids should go through these? It is perhaps precisely because we had gone through these horrible punishments, we must ensure a punishment-free, stress-free learning atmosphere for our children!" True, but at what cost? By making everything accessible on a platter, without having to tan their skin, we are only making their lives worse! Too much unnecessary emotional twang at the drop of a hat is shown by modern parents. That shows they are fragile and they are moulding their next gen fragile emotionally. This is where we go back to what the Cognitive Psychologists call as Desirable Difficulties. One area this is gaining tremendous application relevance is educational psychology.</div>
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<b style="font-weight: bold;">What is Desirable Difficulty?</b> A cognitive psychologist calls it as difficult conceptual learning for an easier long-term recall. What probably in a software engineer's parlance would be difficult encrypting for a better access of programming! Ok... simply put, you increase the level of difficulty during the initial learning process through challenging circumstance, albeit within the reach of the learner, so that the concept is well-entrenched in the mind of the learner; this in turn leads to better recall and better application. This means learning for life-time. </div>
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What this does is to force the learner to think, query, question, interpret, infer, deduce conclusions of their own. This necessitates an active engagement in the teaching-learning process. Herein comes the problem. Are most of our teachers ready for this? In my limited experience of a decade-long association with the school educational system, the teaching community (well, the majority of them!) start with a lot of energy and infectious enthusiasm and ideals. Somewhere down the line they become indifferent. I am not going into a microscopic analysis of this issue. I am not even going into any sort of analysis, for that digresses us from the current issue! Instead, we need to look at what are its fall-outs.</div>
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The teacher becomes indifferent. Doesn't anymore prepare for classes. Takes the syllabus, the lessons and the process of teaching for granted. In the worst case, when a teacher who doesn't deserve to teach a higher class simply because they have not taught and haven't consciously prepared themselves for this eventuality (but nevertheless have always been dreaming of moving from intern to temp to PRT to TGT to PGT!) end up going into a higher class, they think it is humility to accept to the students "I do not know". Honesty and integrity is all fine; but it doesn't save anyone's backside or self-esteem in the eyes of the student community if they do not go back to their drawing table, learn what they humbly confessed as lack of knowledge and get back and show they are a teacher worth taking seriously. And so the penny drops. Many an indifferent teacher become mass murderers of students' impetus and excitement to learn. Thus bad teachers breed indifferent students breed cynical and stoical citizens of the morrow! The solution lies in the hands of the teacher. To actively pursue teaching in a challenging manner. If they do not want to, then they better quit the profession; because, you are killing the future of the nation and you do not care about it. This kind of teacher is worse than a genocidal maniac.</div>
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Having been introduced to Critical Thinking, I took to it like fish to water even though I do not know the first thing about swimming or have gills! It is purely my self-respect. I consider myself a vertebrate and am proud of it. It helps me to gauge my students, prepare to provoke them into thinking on their own, on the feet, in the class, even if the lesson is an old one I have been teaching for a decade thanks to no change of syllabus from the board. What I always think is this: the syllabus is the same, the lesson is the same, but the batch of student is not! This makes me seek that student who carries searching questions or doubts (however silly it may be to us!) in their eyes, encourage them to express it, so I learn something new.</div>
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While I try to educate them, I try to forge levels of difficulty in approaching the answers. Not impossible, but certainly requires effort from the student. In the process the student makes the problem and the learning their own! This is the secret behind Desirable Difficulty. It works. It is beautiful. If you are a teacher, you must try it. Good for you, good for student community, good for your ego, good to feel years later when they acknowledge you on social media as their TEACHER!</div>
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Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-19763147046180308552015-11-26T21:21:00.001+05:302015-11-26T21:21:59.210+05:30A very touching and relevant article on Teachers and their professional needs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The following is the opening few paras of the article found in the link below:<br />
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Vijaya teaches in a school that has one other teacher and 65 students. Every one of her days is a whirl. When you have so many children around, uncontrollable spirits take over. In the classroom and outside, you lurch from minor to major crisis and flow from small to big joys, while trying to keep it going. She loves all this, she loves her job. But she feels isolated.</div>
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The other teacher is cordial with her. While they run the school together well, they never really converse. In the school they have no time, every minute taken up by the demanding tempo. And with an hour’s commute back home, they are both in a hurry to leave as the school ends.</div>
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Her educational background is in the humanities. Even now, after 15 years of teaching, she struggles in teaching math, which she has to, in the primary classes. When she became a teacher as a 23-year-old, everything was a struggle. She remembers being intimidated. Her school’s head-teacher was an aloof man, the school had two other teachers. Each of them was caught in the whirl of the school. She knew she needed help from an experienced teacher, but there was no opportunity. The two other teachers would try, but it would all be in the passing. She survived by her tenacity, and learning on her own. Many others survive this phase by becoming indifferent forever...</div>
To read further, log in here at Live Mint: <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/P6yclqedexZOpkoH3G27AO/Teaching-in-isolation.html" target="_blank">Teaching in Isolation</a></div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-23825445713483582292015-10-04T12:50:00.001+05:302015-10-04T12:50:11.331+05:30Marathon Musings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been following this sudden spurt in Fitness culture among Indians, more specifically at close range in Chennai and Coimbatore, where am currently on a sojourn!<br />
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For a while, the Marathon culture is steadily spreading among the urbanites. It is a good thing. Some run for fitness, some run for a sense of achievement, some run to prove to themselves that they can in little doses push the boundaries of their endurance, some run for records, some run for medals, some for the cause behind these Marathons... and there are also a few wannabes, like in every other vista of life. They just don't wannabe missed out in the next day's or next week's thambola hob-nobs, or miss out on FB status updates or more simply miss out on an opportunity for a selfie!<br />
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I happened to accompany my daughter who took part in the morning's annual Coimbatore Marathon organised for creating consciousness to fight cancer. It was so gratifying to see a sea of people, all up and geared since 4 a.m. The organisers must be really commended and lauded for their unsparing efforts to make the event as smoothest as it can be. It was, too. The experience must have been so fulfilling for all involved - organisers, volunteers, runners. I was a watcher-by for all these events. Well, every event needs an outsider perspective, right! So, there I was.<br />
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They had a novice class - a 5 K.M run/walk, a 10 K.M run and a 21 K.M mini-marathon. There were close to 12000 people participating from what info that could be gathered. Of course, the selfie culture and ego aggrandisement that has inevitably crept into our westernisation process was self-evident. Some even just landed for the sake of it... one of those random events of early-out-of-bed experiences where they communed with their friends they had parted from only 5 or 6 hours since. It was obvious from the way they continued or picked up conversation half-way from where they had left earlier, without as much of a starter pack! Some had just landed, registered, but did not hit the starting line... traipsed or trudged or ambled or lolled the other way and walked through a short cut to the finish area. They couldn't care to collect their medals: well, they knew they won't get one or deserved to get one, didn't they? Honest Souls, lol! Some... but again... were loaded with precautions to the hilt even though they were doing the novice class. And resolved, even before the race began, inspired by the refreshing and rejuvenating electricity of the atmosphere, that they would attempt to get up this early each succeeding mornings of their post-marathon life. Some... it was routine. They were there, been there, done that and were doing it... and would do it... by default.<br />
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What was it that inspired this tribe, I wondered, that made them commit to these marathons! They sure were no Ethiopians or Kenyans, though one could notice the inevitable African presence at marathons, here too. Yes, there were non-locals and non-Indians too. There was a bunch - rather a few unrelated bunch of people from Kerala. These are Marathoners who travelled from Marathon to Marathon by habit. Fitness freaks? No, I would say. What it is... I can't say. Inspiring it was, I can say.<br />
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Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-44372440679761367562015-10-04T12:34:00.001+05:302015-10-04T12:34:49.521+05:30Cold War Resurrected. Thanks for being the shit, Mr. Obama!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The US-Russia points of divergence continually keep surfacing to an odious extent and to the point of silliness that it is beyond people to react. People are really getting comfortably numb at this noisome vapidity and fulsome platitude of political muscle flexing.<br />
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Why on earth would Obama admin now try to undermine Russian efforts at countering IS when they also want to achieve the same end? Why is it acceptable to the US Govt only if every other nation who wants to fight terrorism follows their methodology and means? Is that not blatant and hypocritical politicisation? This casts a spectre of doubt on the genuineness of US' attempts to combat global terrorism. This is very analogous to how Congress keeps opposing anything BJP tries - the very same thing they would have resorted to or done. Or vice-versa.<br />
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Whom does this political posturing benefit? Is it that important to the suffering millions what underlying political agenda Russia has, when it wants to extend support to Syria in its bid to counter terrorism? When someone tries to waylay these attempts, does that not smack of insecurity? Issues with Iran and Al-Assad must be set aside for achieving a bigger goal, that is to ensure there are no more refugees. The magnitude of problem that Europe is going through, as well as those Syrians who do not want to migrate anywhere, leave alone to Europe or Turkey, is much simpler to handle if these two joined hands and brought all their allies together in one massive global umbrella. That would ensure peace for everyone who matters; no EU countries that cannot handle any more influx of population more than that they can handle, would be unhappy. These smaller countries with their own wobbly economies would not begrudge the refugees and probably welcome the miniscule that have till yet been forced upon them with forthcoming hands of brotherhood, because these small countries - mostly splinters of erstwhile united countries - know the pain of seeking refuge and migration. By joining hands with Russia, only because they started the raids first, the US would do Europe a world of good, and redeem itself as a gracious ally, in this war against militancy. It would be the same case, if US had started and Russia were to adopt the current US stance. That's what grace is, magnanimity of heart is, genuine global cooperation is.<br />
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What if the two powers came together on a mission with common goal against a common enemy and then sort out their skirmishes in private? And this coming from Mr. Obama proves that he is no better than his political forbears on either side of the national divide, that he too is a pawn of strong inner-national lobbies. This really is surprising given the notion that he is not going to run for another term, however much he probably wants to or would like to; when you go out into the sunset, why not set an example of having broken new paths, travel roads less travelled, blaze trails for others to follow! That, now, is the kind of example that beacons of wisdom do, to be remembered for eternity on the sands of time. Mr. Obama is not a man for all seasons or reasons. I am disappointed, because 8 years ago, he really looked set to do that, but now he doesn't mind being judged unworthy by history.<br />
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The only way, again, for the global powers to make Vlad Putin feel comfortable to give in in his other transgressions and perceived aggression within the vicinity of his immediate borders, ingressing into the splintered nations of erstwhile USSR, would be to show him what a largesse of accommodative political gesture can be, what the power of magnanimity can be, instead of behaving like Scrooge!<br />
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As the Bishop tells to Jean Valjean, "Sometimes one has to do much for the devil to do little to god." Amen.</div>
Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.com0