Lights, Camera ENERGY!!and a whole Lot More!!!!!!

"Lights Camera Energy!!!!"

This is what I felt when I recently attended a three day drama workshop held at the Dioscese Youth Centre, Bandra.
More than fun (which it obviously was) it was Inspiring!! Very inspiring!!

"All worlds a stage and each must play a part"

Here we were a bunch of eager learners playing our part............
Move Jump Become a tree move your face muscles, smile, frown, stretch, let lose, Let Go!!!! Let GO !!Let Go!!!!!!!!LET GO!!!

                That’s what drama is all about .......Letting yourself go and being possessed ........possessed not only by your character, but also by the incessant desire for perfection, for giving your best for being outrageous!!!!! Larger than life!!!
              Watching Fr Walter made me realize that there is a thin line between casualness, drama and being overly dramatic, actions have to be amplified on stage to captivate the audience, but over amplifying the actions leads to a total crappy sappy performance.
              He split us into groups and asked us to come up with a play that we would have to put up. We came up with a thriller entitled, “Thou shall not”...(I will Put up the video as soon as I get It )......It’s not entirely professional but it’s the best we could do in three days !!! It’s a cool play and the most important thing was we gave it our best...even if we were staging it for a group of 7-8 people .We put our Whole in it ....It was a long time since I wrote a script and well……, the feeling was pure bliss!!! ..Like my brain was rewarding me for realizing that, that part of it exists!!!!!!

               I loved the feeling!!!!! It took me back two years to the time my friend Cheryl and I got together to write a script for an inter-class one act play competition ....It was then I realized that I have a knack for writing ...It was the similar experience only there it lasted for a week .....It’s as Harry felt when he was leading the D.A revolution against Umbridge It was like, "he was carrying a talisman in his chest,over the following two weeks, a glowing secret that supported him through Umbrirdge's class and even made him smile(OMG) blandly as he looked into her horrible buldging eyes!!" I felt the exact same thing ...the script, the immense belief thatour Idea would work, the time we had during practices.... was my Talisman....Everything felt nicer, much more enhanced and I felt.. FREE!!!!!!!
              Very Free!! I didn’t think that people were looking or that I looked like an utter fool when I explained the play to my friends, when I showed them my moves at Grant Road Station.. ... I dint care!!…….. I was Free !!and there was a light within me, it empowered me, really really empowered me, And I did my best!!
          On stage I was Ethan, head over heels in Love with Crystalann .........who needed Cupid to intervene because of Crystalann's disinterest!!!
The performance was outrageous and CRAZY!!!!
I actually danced on stage!!!

               I…ZENA!!! ZENA YARDE 'Super conscious when I dance ZENA'!!!!… DANCED.. on …..STAGE!!!! ………STAGE!!!!! U know how big that was for me?????????????Me??? the eternal "I don’t dance" person?????

And my dance didn’t even have complete proper predetermined steps!!!!!
[ Except for the part where I danced with Crystalann, thanks to the efforts of Cupid (Cheryl ..bless her soul)]
I was totally making it up !!!!!!! Crotch thrust and all!!!!!!!!!!!!!Talk about Letting Go!!!! It was the most ecstatic that I’ve ever felt!!! The Group from St Andrews College that consisted of some really talented HOT guys, was screaming “ONCE MORE !!!ONCE MORE!!!!!!!!!”*Sigh*

Was I in heaven???????

             HeLL YeAH!!!!
          
                     But our balloon badly deflated when we came in Third!!!!No one...and I mean NO ONE!!!! Expected it ............and when they announced Best Actor a lot of them looked at me but some other girl got it!!!!! Oh The Injustice! I tell U!!!!!!
            I was so so so very disappointed!!!!! Cheryl was down too!! I tried to cheer her up but my sad sullen face just wouldn’t do the trick!!!

           But then, on my way home .........thinking about it all .......I Smiled ...............maybe the most satisfied smile in that train......I smiled cause I remembered the time we all spent together practicing for the play ..... The fun we had putting it up. The talisman in my chest glowed brighter and inspite of our "Loss" I was happy!

I learnt that I was talented,

I could dance like crazy in front of 60 something people when I wanted to,

I can write a killer Script that appeals to the audience,

I can get HOT actors Screaming "ONCE MORE ONCE MORE" *sighs* what more could I want????
And, the most important lesson of all .........

"It’s not always the destination But the Journey that counts"

 If the journey was crappy, one would not appreciate the destination too.

And well, the second most important lesson ...Judges decision really reflect their own subjective opinions, bias and observations and may not really be the only decision that would ever be made at that position in time..............

Come on are U going to tell me that those guys …..And girls.. For that matter, screaming for an ENCORE were fools???Naaahhhhh they just judged differently ....and if they liked it We won!

           Our 1st Prize was  members of the other groups saying that we should have won,

           Our 1st Prize was the St Andrews people (who showcased a superb performance themselves later ) screaming "Once more Once more !!!!!"

           Our 1st Prize was the Joy we could feel even when we thought about practice time..

           My Prize is the memories of the play I have, where some really great people I learnt a lot from, really believed in our play and took time off to help us fine tune it !!

           Our 1st Prize was that we actually really really WON the First prize in a more profound way!!!!!

We felt like winners.....during making the play as well as a day after the results were announced!!!(We were not very happy at first remember????)

We ARE winners!!!!

           The three day session on dramatics brought back all those memories, all those feelings ...they filled me as we were planning the play ....the script again became my talisman .........things that seemed so big a moment ago were dropped, Just like that!! ...like those troubles never mattered, like they never were there in the first place.... the play was all I could see..........

         THEATRE …all aspects of it, has such a profound impact on me .........and trust me I have not found something equivalent to it as yet!!!


The Brochure that Fr Walter gave us posed this statement to us

"Drama Requires Dedication of your whole self are you ready for it??"

U already know what my answer is don’t you............??????

         !!!!!! HELL YEAH !!!!!!!!

Good things dont End!

“Love is not a feeling, it's an ability.” - Steve Carell
Dan In real Life.
I watched this movie today, Loved the way Steve Carell performed, he brought out the character well and I could feel the longing and the turmoil he was going through and the wrongful rightness of it all.......Its something that made me laugh, cry and pull my hair and Yell "What the hell are U thinking!!!"
I really loved it!

 Then today as I was watching yet another rerun of the last episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S ..as they made their way out of their appartment for coffee... I found my self feeling sad that the show ended ...however .....Something came to me .....My own Quote
" All Good things dont come to an end ....all good things are Just the beginning" -Zena Yarde.
Well its true ...how can something be Really really Perfectly good if it actually ends.....Like is no more.
Good things are just the beginning on the way to better and Best ...with a few Bad holes in  between.

Birthday wishes to Dear Mama!

Its my Mommie's Bday today !!!! she has turned 49!!! my my do they grow up fast!!!
A caring understanding and Sacrificial woman !! Someone to who I owe myself to!
Sure everything is not hunky dory always ...We do have our moments where we shout out lungs out at each other.
We differ on a couple of things, especially our views on life.
I cant help but imagine a baby when I think of her sometimes!
For a personality like me my mom can get a little difficult to Love ......
But its a funny thing U know .....
Very funny .....
While travelling in the train the other day I was thinking of this....and I realised ..
That despite our differences despite our tempers ...
Despite the things I've said to her in the past .......
I do Love her........
It is funny..........
but I guess this is what Love really is ........

So Im thankful today for the birth of a person who I have Grown to Love .......
Without whom I would obviously not be writing this blog or even thinking this way.


Happy Birthday Marian a.k.a Bunda a.k.a Mom!

Now?

The Choice is already made ...We Just have to find out why ....
Ive being going through some personal Crap lately.....
Things that I thought were sorted out seem to be otherwise....
However its not that much ...
But it does bother me .....
The funny part is I know It will all go away ...
That ten years from now I will look back and wonder why did it really matter ...
Ten years from now I would have Different priorities..............
Ten years from now I will have Grown much more........
Ten years from now I would have more pressing and easily solvable issues....
However ......
The problem is ...
Right now Im Ten years behind Ten years......
And Right now SUCKS!......

Go up today with a horrible back ache ..It began yesterday and hasn't stopped.
I'm learning to appreciate the state of having a perfectly functioning "acheless" back!

Someone said it right when they said that we don't know what we have unless we lose it.

Well I am gonna learn to appreciate things before the disappear forever now.

A Tribute ....

Three Days seems like a long Time, I think I am in Love with my blog.


We had a program in college from the 1st-3rd called ‘LIVE-IN’, now don’t go getting shocked or anything ...what can be scandalizing about a group of girls living in college and attending various personality and spiritual development sessions??? Well that’s what our Live in was about ...the term was coined long before Live -in relationships became rampant and the word assumed a different connotation.

The Program was pretty nice..we didn’t have the usual crowd coming for the Live-In ...there were a lot of freshers ....Girls Just out of school ....for whom maybe it was the first time away from their parents .........Boy were they Noisy!!!!!! I know I will sound like a grand mom n clichéd when I say this.....but boy were WE sober!!! It really tested my patience ...my irritation would increase along with their decibels....It was my test in self control and letting go, If I did give them a piece of my mind it would spoil the whole atmosphere of the place and I didn’t want that, and after all they were just kids ..They will Grow ....this thought (reinforced by friends too) is what made it all easier to bear. However I did kinda yell at them last night after repeatedly telling them to keep quite for not letting the others sleep ...they were still very noisy….they seemed to think they were the only people in the room!!

All of them weren’t like that ...some held their own and two seemed to be really beyond their years ...It was nice getting to know them.

I liked this live- in though, I got to know some new people and renewed and deepened old friendships.



On the 2nd of October was Gandhi Jayanti(the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi) our coordinator Sister Patricia lovingly known as Sister Pat asked us to attend mass...she even asked her community to change the mass timings to 7:00am to suit our waking up time. The mass was a very nice experience, it was the first time I came a cross an authentic Indian mass, complete with chants, bhajans and Aarti. I felt very nice to see the way the sisters imbibed Indian culture ...They tend to blur the lines of religion; this is one characteristic of their congregation that I really like.

The introduction contained Quotes from the Mahatma and also reminded us that it was Lal Bahadur Shashtri's Bday too, so we prayed for the gift of both of them to us.


While having my evening Chai (tea) today, I put on the TV to see that ‘GANDHI’ the movie was going on. The moment I saw it on TV instantly my mind flew back to my Visit to Aga Khan Palace in Pune. This was the place where Gandhi was imprisoned by the British along with his Wife and Assistant both of whom died there.

For me it was hallowed ground.

We walked in silence talking it all in ..........I couldn’t believe I was walking on the same place this great man did.

As I watched the movie I was deeply touched by the principles this man stood for and stood by ...HE was true to what he believed in...Love Peace and Non-Violence…….. and he practiced what he preached.

I takes great self belief to stand for what he stood for.........

In a time where Indians were holding arms against the British for our freedom he had the courage to stand up and inspire a different way of revolt...

He decided to prick the British conscience............

He showed people how the fight fire with Soothing cool water of Love and peace …..

He stood up against injustice but in the process made sure that he didn’t imitate the ways of his oppressors.

In his own words "The only tyrant I (He) accept(ed) in this world is (was) the still voice within."

As the movie progressed to the conflicts between Gandhi and Jinnah and the problem of Violence between the Hindus and the Muslims.....I was getting more absorbed by this Man's personality as portrayed by Richard Attenborough with Ben Kingsley very beautifully playing the Role of Gandhi.

I felt like protecting him shielding his light from the harsh winds of the world that really didn’t seem to understand the profoundness of what he preached....................

It then Hit me how much I owe to this man who barely knew me ......Who fought for the rights of women like me.....who awoke the Spirit of revolution among the Indian people in such a potent way that the British with their brute strength and fire power could not Suppress......

Who set an example for the whole of India to follow.....



And I cried ….I don’t know why….. but... I cried......



I felt for this man, who without thinking twice put his life on line for me ....so that I can have my freedom of expression ....so that I can have my dignity so that I can be proud of who I am today.

I Salute him and I promise to make the most of this gift I have received from this man.....very few nations have such powerful and noble leaders................

I feel blessed to share my citizenship with him.



“Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it - always.”

-Gandhi



Jai Ho;)