Play Time - Zen Katha vs. Singapore River

Kumar and i were supposed to be at the climbing gym last evening. but we changed our mind and instead went to watch Zen Katha a play written by Pratap Sharma and directed by Lillette Dubey (of the Monsoon Wedding fame where she played Pimmi Verma). we read up a bit about it and it sounded promising enough except for their more-than-average priced tickets for the evening.

Zen Katha is the story of how Zen (as we know it today) came into being. The story is woven together by historical references of religion, caste, travel and learning insights gained by Bodhidharma an erstwhile Prince who renounces his princely life to become a monk.

Story-wise, i am not sure if enough care was taken to verify historical references. some of the milestones look weak without any support of any solid proof to substantiate them. I know it's difficult to completely rely on whatever documented material there is on something that happened way in the past.. in a land far away. It is all the more difficult when whatever was documented has several interpretations. How are we to bank on any one of them as absolutely certain. It's worse when some large chunks in time of travel and illness perhaps were not documented at all!!! so largely guesswork does a lot of good and some probability too.

The Actors were all good but for the lead Rajiv Gopalakrishnan who played bodhidharma. I can imagine with whatever knowledge i have to go by, that bodhidhama could have easily been a potent man with some kind of charisma and power. Rajiv lacked this spirit in him. and to his ill luck neither did the script have too much power in it to pull it through. It could cerainly do with some sprucing up indeed.

However the play did not have soporific qualities at all. It was certainly engaging thanks to the other actors who did a wonderful job of keeping it alive. Lighting was fabulous. Props were a disappointment though. sound was good too but not powerful enough to stir any partiotic strings in me. Lillete said in the beginning of the play, 'if nothing else, this will make you proud of being an Indian'.. mmmmm i'm afraid i did not feel that way Lillete.

Kumar and i walked out of the hall saying 'it could have been a lot better' and walked towards Singapore River. What an awesome sight it was. Interesting statues all around the place. My pet favourite being the one along the river's corniche which had a bunch of barebodied young boys ready to jump into the river. It was so real , i thought they would come alive and be cross if i touched them. gorgeous. and so real.

We then walked to Clarke Quay; a kaleidoscope of restaurants, wine bars, retail shops, coffee bars and sea food aroma (that sent signals to my olfactory systems to shut down!!). we found a nice little coffee shop called Coffee Lotus (or was it Cafe Lotus) where we had a light dinner and got back home. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

missed my daddy's bday

only last night, eleven days after dad's b'day did i realise that i missed it. its strange that i did. because i'm not very wont to missing b'days let alone dad's. i was feeling really low about it and spoke to hubby dear. i wrote dad a long mail today telling hm about how i felt missing his b'day. i just realised, i'm not apologising for it, cuz i don't find the need for it. just feeling a little weird i guess. hmmm

shin-ja-pour

i'm married...
my fingers are numb and they ache... ouch (oh how misleading this one word is for kumar!!)
kindly note that the above two sentences are not directly connected to each other... but it is because of the existence of the former that the latter comes into being..
for how long have i been married to kumar??
mmmmm for almost close to a month now.. just nearing there.. and man its been beautiful.. and as fresh as the mehandi marks on my toe nails and finger nails

yes the same fingers which have mehandi marks on them are hurting. They are killing me with a blunt pain that makes my hand lose orientation. As if they were somebody else's that i've borrowed, for a while... and its now time to return them with much thanks...

did you know that there is something called the climbing gym!! i did not until some months ago when kumar introduced to such a phenomenon!! this is like a training ground for all those warriors who want to train hard for the real mountain climb. I went to a climbing gym today. Oh did i tell you i'm now in singapore.. shin-ja-pour, (that's what kumar calls it) ooh i just did tell you.

This place (the climbing gym) is like a room filled with walls (ummm dont all the rooms look that way!!!). heh. There are various levels of climbing. These levels are not characterized by the height of the wall (which our mind typically sets to think), but by the slants in the walls. An inward slant as you go higher up is essentially for beginners and that with an outward slant as you go higher up the wall is more challenging. Your feet and fingers are expected to search for mock stone edges sticking out of this wall (here and there) constructed within the reach of a hand and enough for one feet to propel the body to help manoeuvre yourself upwards and simultaneously find another foothold.. or rather foot to hold stone. Also there is a harness tied around your waist like a chastity belt all the time. A rope is tied to this harness at one end so as to help hoist you up. The other end of it is used to belay you.There are specific colour code climbs as well, red being the most challenging I guess. Like the name suggests, once you've picked up your code, you'll have to stick to it till the end, use only that code to climb..and no cheating ..everyone's watching you.

People, neither is it as complicated as it sounds nor as imposing as it looks. once you start climbing, you just want to keep going up. and while coming down its awesome to swing-glide down thanks to the belaying!!

Jo is a big strength for beginners like me whom he knows as well as for some other novices he befriends in the gym. Had it not been for him, i would not have done the specific-colour-outward-slant climb. and even if i did manage to climb, i would not have completed it.. all the time i had my hubby dear patiently belaying me.. :)

that was my first climbing experience and it was so much fun.. though indoor.. more on climbing will come soon, as and when i climb.. that is!!