Interview with an American-Indian Actor, Oscar Wilde at the NCPA and A Play in Bandra

Thursday, November 22, 2018
Bombay

Interview with an American-Indian Actor, Oscar Wilde at the NCPA and A Play in Bandra

     Namaste from Bombay!
     I woke up on Thanksgiving Day in the US to a bunch of calls. Today was another one of those crazy days--it is mainly feast (rarely famine) for me!
      Up at 6.30 am, I spent quite a long while on the phone as Llew consulted with me about Thanksgiving that he is hosting at our Southport home for a total of 13 folks! Go Him! He had a lot of questions relating to serving options, menu, etc--he had completed table settings at the weekend. Then another long catch-up call with Chriselle during which I wished her A Happy Thanksgiving too and before I knew it, I had to race through my breakfast--no muesli today as I ran out of apples, but I had a croissant and two slices of bread with spreads--lovely!
     No gym either today as I had to rush in for a shower and leave my place at 9.20 for the bus into the city. There were no Bandra local trains today for some reason...so I ended up in a regular slow train (not too bad at all). From Churchgate, I took a cab to Cuffe Parade--I had an appointment there at 11.00 am and I was exactly on time.

An Interview with Jinx Akerkar:
     Jinx Akerkar is a German Jew who emigrated to the US in the 1930s from Berlin when she was a child with her parents. In college in Wisconsin, she met her Indian husband, married him and came to live in Bombay where she has been for the past 63 years.  She speaks the most beautiful Hindi but, as she informed me, she has an ear for languages and speaks French, German, Italian and English in addition to Hindi.
     As someone who acted on the English stage in the 1950s with Theater Group and Alyque Padamsee, Jinx proved to be a very interesting person. She offered me wonderful material about her own life story as well as her experiences of working in the early English theater in Bombay.  We met at a restaurant called Hammer and Song at the World Trade Center (WTC) which I knew well as I'd had a reunion with my former Jai Hind College students there, a couple of weeks ago.  She had a birthday party to attend there at 12. 30--so with about 90 minutes at our disposal, we settled down well for a chat.

Lunch with my Friend Aban:
     At 12. 20, I bid Jinx goodbye and waked across the street to Casablanca to spend about an hour with Aban, my former colleague at Jai Hind College. Aban, who was a French professor at Jai Hind, continues to teach at the Alliance Francaise de Bombay in addition to doing translating and interpretation for the French commercial corporations in the city.  Our friendship goes back several decades and we throughly enjoy the rare times we get together.
     Aban insisted that I join her for lunch and over chicken curry and spinach, we had a very lovely family meal while chatting and catching up on things.  We will be meeting again soon as we have a mutual friend in Firdaus who also wants to get together with us.

Oscar Wilde at the NCPA:
       I could not stay with Aban long as it turned out that both Jinx and I were heading to the 2.00 pm screening of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde that was being beamed by HDLive from the National Theater in London.  Jinx, therefore, offered me a ride and told me to return at 1.40 to the World Trade Center--which I did. It was great to get a ride in a chauffeur-driver car from her.
     At the WTC, I met up with Shahnaz who had taken the train in from Bandra and had arrived there to meet me.  I was also delighted to meet Vispi Balaporia who taught me everything I know about administration of an academic department as she had hired me in my very first job at Jai Hind College when she was Head of the English Department there. I had worked under her for 8 years before leaving India for the US. We had a nice visit during the intermission and I promised her that I would get in touch with her again soon.  Now retired, she continues to be deeply involved in the affairs of Jai Hind College and in the running of the Asiatic Society Library at the Bombay Town Hall.
     The play was quite delightful indeed. I have seen many versions of it over the years in London with a number of well-known stars such as Rupert Everett playing Earnest and actresses such as Penelope Keith and Susan Woolidge playing Lady Bracknell.  Still, it is a treat to mull over the deliciously witty lines of Oscar Wilde and Shahnaz and I throughly enjoyed it--as clearly did all the members of the audience.  We are really very lucky indeed that we have such fine quality entertainment in Bombay.

On the Train Home, Tea and a Visit with Dad:
    Shahnaz and I took a cab to Churchgate station and then the train from there back to Bandra. I was home to enjoy a lovely pot of tea, some cake and the rest of my eclair before dashing off my blog post for the day (as I had found no time in the morning). Then I left home, walked over to Dad's and spent about an hour with him and Russel.  They are all well and wished me a Happy Thanksgiving. Honestly, the day goes by quite unnoticed in this part of the world. At 7.00 pm, I got a call from Shahnaz telling me to come to my Dad's gate where she was waiting in a rickshaw to pick me up.

Project STRIP as Part of the Celebrate Bandra Festival:
     And so we arrived at the venue (the Ranwar Club) which turned out to be an Open Air venue on a very warm night (pretty uncomfortable) to see Project STRIP, another play that was directed by Quasar Padamsee (we saw his Khatijabai yesterday).  This, however, was very boring, very badly written and had a plot that did not hold my interest at all. I found the acting really awful--everything about it was bad. It was about the exploitation of unspoiled parts of the world by corporations who send anthropologists to do ethnographic work that they then wish to exploit for commercial purposes. I'm afraid that by the intermission, there was no movement to the plot at all and I simply decided I'd had enough. Shahnaz was of the same mind. I guess after hearing the gems of linguistic excellence that is a play by Oscar Wilde, this dialogue was too much of a come down for us.

Thanksgiving Dinner at the Bandra Gymkhana:
     We reached the last item on my very crowded agenda as Shahnaz and I decided to adjourn to the Bandra Gymkhana restaurant for dinner. They were having a Seafood Festival there and we decided to try out their delicacies. The restaurant's air-conditioning system had also recently been attended to and it was pleasant to sit on a Thursday evening when the place was less crowded to shoot the breeze over fresh lemonade and feast on a menu of sweet corn crab soup, a whole pomfret stuffed with green chutney (divine), Singaporean Chilli Crab (good but not as good as the ones I have had in Singapore) and Prawns Caldine (which is Shahnaz's favorite--most of which she took home to feast on at leisure).
     It occurred to me while I was there that this was my Thanksgiving dinner--a rather weird one (no turkey in sight and no mashed potatoes or gravy or cranberry sauce or green bean casserole or pumpkin pie); but we did not do too badly with a meal that was quite memorable indeed. I recalled that, ten years ago, when I was celebrating Thanksgiving in London with my American colleague, Karen, we had gone to a 'chippie' at Covent Garden and eaten Fish and Chips! So, ten years later, Fish featured well in my Thanksgiving dinner too!
     It was about 11.30 pm that I got home and about midnight that I turned off the night and called a halt to a full and very exciting day.
     Until tomorrow...