Drama in real life...

From childhood I loved the stage, be it dancing, singing, plays or public speaking.

In school days, there were so many opportunities and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Life later on was more about studying engineering and then later on working that I loved every day of it. During my Wipro days I started the Wipro Toastmasters Club being the founder President there.

In 2008, I embarked on my entrepreneurial journey , certainly not easy in the beginning but eventually extremely rewarding with profits, experiences and networking.

In 2019, I decided to move to technology and arts. While learning different emerging technologies and bagging projects with success shining again. I also took out considerable time for fitness and the arts. In the arts I was able to do acrylic and digital painting. My desire to act got me searching online for acting schools and voila one fine day I found Ranji David’s organisational theatre

My excitement was at the zenith, with no worries of travelling half of Bangalore to learn and enjoy theatre. Ranji’s theatre was more of devised, playback and improv theatre. I attended all his workshops and was extremely happy with the experience and exposure.

November 2022, Ranji announced scripted theatre to be taught by Omkar Kibe. Most of us who were with Ranji for the past few months jumped to this opportunity.

The workshop was conducted with lot of exercises and activities while we got introduced scenes, analysing the scripts and then enacting scenes. We were told that none of these are auditions and all will get a fair chance to enact and be part of the Anton Chekov play “The Good Doctor “ with 9 scenes.

After 2 months of activity and delving in the scenes, Omkar announces the first 5 scenes. I got a few writer lines and a 5 lines for one scene. When I went to rehearse I was done swiftly while I saw other actors spending time in so many other scenes. 

The following week when the remaining 4 scenes were announced I assumed that the ones who were not assigned characters in the first set will get a chance but shockingly the same actors got assigned in the second set too.

I comprehended that either these were done randomly or with care and thought and complete bias. When I raised this with Omkar: he had points like 

too many women in the workshop, 

Age and gender that fit into characters 

Im the Director, the decision is made and final

My argument to this was:

This is a workshop and not an audition to a play. The play should be selected based on the people attending the workshop and not the other way wherein people are selected based on the play.

Everyone in the workshop should get a fair chance for experience and exposure on stage 

Omkar Kibe was extremely stubborn and didn’t budge, even though scenes 6 to 9 were just decided and could be easily reassigned. He continued his arrogant self and told no characters will be changed, everything is fixed now.

Ranji David also listened to me and his understanding was that this is scripted theatre vs devised theatre. In scripted theatre these problems always happen. Further he went on to say that he had missed auditions earlier in life and it’s okay to get small roles its a learning process. 

I told him its a workshop and not a play. If it was a professional play yes I would totally accept the verdict of the director. He would pretend not understand what Im saying. 

We are paying 5000 per month for 4 months  in which I have paid 15000 already and if I have only 5 minutes of stage exposure versus others getting 20 mins this is outright cheating and not the expected outcome of the workshop. 

If they felt that the play needed more males, Ranji and Omkar shouldn’t have allowed us women in the workshop and taking huge sums from each of us.  Im planning to put these points in consumer complaint too.

Well well, what started with so much positivity ended with me dropping out of the workshop as I wasn’t ready to spend more money and time, driving for 2 hours to rehearse for less than 5 mins. Further attitudinally the Trainer Omkar Kibe at the workshop was arrogant and nasty, tough to really work with someone like that. While Ranji not providing any support to the woes of his long time customer and instead portraying me in a bad light that Im not being sportive enough.

Drama in real life indeed…..

Some offline and online comments:

Feeling of hurt and betrayal

This was not what I signed up for

Unprofessional and Incompetent

Im no longer available for things that make me feel like shit

Waiting Blues

Covered in the blood of time

It's going to be a crimson night

When the moon does it's crime

And I will not put on any fight

Oh that's so blue your love

Give me all the shades, yeah

I care less about the world

Let me smile away a tear

No, don't come to me baby

My love is in the waiting

Keep yourself so empty

True feelings are fleeting

Grief, mourning, and bereavement

When a person loses someone important to them, they go through a normal process called grieving. Grieving is natural and expected. Over time, it can help the person accept and understand their loss.

Bereavement is what a person goes through when someone close to them dies. It’s the state of having suffered a loss. The person who has lost someone is said to be bereaved.

Mourning is the outward expression of loss and grief. Mourning includes rituals and other actions that are specific to each person’s culture, personality, and religion. Bereavement and mourning are both part of the grieving process.

Grieving involves many different emotions, actions, and expressions, all of which help the person come to terms with the loss of a loved one. But keep in mind, grief doesn’t look the same for everyone. And, every loss is different.

Courtesy: cancer.org

Could there be anything perfect baby?

There you are.. right where you belong
And Iam all snugged up in your soul
Could there be anything perfect baby?
The crazy seas finally found the shores :)

I may look like a hard nut to crack but...
You know that am actually all broken
Could there be anything perfect baby?
You got my pieces back together to me

It looks like there isnt any future ahead
Its tough to dream a world together...
Could there be anything perfect baby?
The beautiful present keeps us going

There when I see your eyes I see me
I touch you and I know you wear my skin
Could there be anything perfect baby?
We are the same body, mind n soul

Meri Jaan Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho...

Meri Jaan Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho ( Lyrics )
Movie : Anubhav
Music Director : Kanu Roy
Singer(s) :Geeta dutt
Lyricists :Gulzar

Meri Jaan, Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho Meri Jaan
Meri Jaan, Meri Jaan
Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho Meri Jaan
Meri Jaan, Meri Jaan

[Jaan Na Kaho Anjaan Mujhe 
Jaan Kahaan Rahati Hai Sadaa] 2
Anjaane, Kyaa Jaane
Jaan Ke Jaae Kaun Bhalaa
Meri Jaan
Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho Meri Jaan 

Suukhe Saavan Baras Gae
Kitani Baar In Aankhon Se
Do Boondien Naa Barase
In Bhigi Palakon Se
Meri Jaan
Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho Meri Jaan 

[Honth Jhuke Jab Honthon Par
Saans Ulajhi Ho Saanson Men ] 2
Do JuDavaan Honthon Ki
Baat Kaho Aankhon Se
Meri Jaan
Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho Meri Jaan


Listen to the song here...

Note: This song is dedicated to my dear and loving husband :)

The Spiritual Seeker

Jiddu Krishnamurti (various writings)

Most people are unhappy; and they are unhappy because there is no love in their hearts.

Freedom lies outside the pattern of society; but to be free of that pattern you have to understand the whole content of it, which is to understand your own mind.

You can be creative only when there is abandonment--which means, really, there is no sense of compulsion, no fear of not being, of not gaining, of not arriving. Then there is great austerity, simplicity, and with it there is love.

It is necessary for all of us to awaken in ourselves this spirit of cooperation, for then it will not be a mere plan or agreement which causes us to work together, but an extraordinary feeling of togetherness, the sense of joy in being and doing together without any thought of reward or punishment.

Through self-knowledge you begin to find out what is God, what is truth, what is that state which is timeless. In self-knowledge is the whole universe; it embraces all the struggles of humanity.

To understand what is right meditation there must be an awareness of the operation of one's own consciousness, and then there is complete attention.

As long as you ask questions you are breaking through, but the moment you begin to accept, you are psychologically dead. So right through life don't accept a thing, but inquire, investigate. Then you will find that your mind is something really extraordinary, it has no end, and to such a mind there is no death.

It is only in a very quiet mind that great things are born; and a quiet mind does not come about through effort, through control, through discipline.

A mind that practices love cannot love.

Do not pursue what should be, but understand what is.

Love is the most practical thing in the world. To love, to be kind, not to be greedy, not to be ambitious, not to be influenced by people but to think for yourself--these are all very practical things, and they will bring about a practical, happy society.

In the search for reality, energy creates its own discipline. But mere discipline, without full comprehension of all this, has no meaning, it is a most destructive thing.

The man who is seeking truth is free of all societies and cultures.

Meditation is the process of understanding your own mind.

Are you aware of the significance of every thought, of every reaction that you happen to have?

When the mind sees itself in the mirror of relationship, from that perception there is self-knowledge.

Goodness, generosity, or love does not come into being save through the search for reality.

Mere isolation in an enclosing idea is not a release from conflict.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action, which is relationship.

We have so committed ourselves in different ways that we have hardly any time for self-reflection, to observe, to study.

The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is.

Only when the mind is tranquil--through self-knowledge and not through imposed self-discipline--only then, in that tranquillity, in that silence, can reality come into being. It is only then that there can be bliss, that there can be creative action.

Being discontented, we either seek a different job or merely succumb to environment…instead of causing us to question life, the whole process of existence.

We are empty shells if we do not possess, if we do not fill our life with furniture, with music, with knowledge, with this or that. And that shell makes a lot of noise, and that noise we call living; and with that we are satisfied. When there is a disruption, a breaking away of that, then there is sorrow, because you suddenly discover yourself as you are--an empty shell, without much meaning.

The very attention given to finding out if the mind can be completely quiet is quietness.

Most people like to live in illusions.

Our conflict is in relationship, at all levels of our existence; and the understanding of this relationship, completely and extensively, is the only real problem that each one has.

Achieve order within yourself…an inward tranquility which knows no disturbance at any moment…in the daily life of the home and the office.

Free yourself from the psychological structure of society, which is to free yourself from the essence of conflict.

Freedom lies beyond the field of consciousness.

Attachment

I remember a spiritual guru saying that the biggest problem he faces is with women, they get attached and emotional with the Guru itself. Teaching detachment to them is even more difficult, being a woman I am getting aware to that :)

While I was talking to my friend and spiritual guru, I asked this question today...

Me : How can we be detached as you said? How can one walk away with no strings attached?
Him:  By simple accepting things without any modifications (according to our fantasies). Without any expectations. Accept the unaltered truth and you will be detached.

Me: No masala? :)
Him: Masala is Maya and Maya is dangerous. Keeps one in illusion and being in an illusion means drifting away from the truth.

Happiness

Today someone asked me on chat "What should I do to be happy?"

I pondered:
Why should someone want to be happy, why is each human seeking happiness? :)

We humans want to take lot of actions to be happy...why can we just BE

There is a difference between DOING and BEING

Lets just BE happy, we dont have to DO a whole lot of things trying to achieve happiness, wont lead us anywhere....JUST BE!! :)