A Physiotherapy Session for Russel and an Interview at Prithvi Theater

Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Bombay

A Physiotherapy Session for Russel and an Interview at Prithvi Theater

     Namaste from Bombay!
     Time is fleeting and I am trying hard to catch up with my past Fulbright interviews which were wiped out on my computer. I have to say that I am not doing too badly and slowly, but steadily, they are being re-input.
     So brekkie was muesli with coffee before I whipped off to Dad's for Russel's physio session with Valerian. As it turned out both he and Dad had a lousy night--Dad's implants are causing Russel anxiety and keeping him up at night and when he is up, so is Dad. Suffice it to say that Dad looked dreadful when I saw him and Russel was fast asleep at 9.00 am when I got there!  When he awoke, he was insistent that we should cancel our appointment, but Dad managed to convince him to co-operate. It was clearly not going to be the best of sessions, that was for sure!
   Valerian did come around and as Russel all but refused to even walk to the living room, exercises were confined to his bed. Dad was very disappointed but Russel was simply not in the mood or the right frame of mind and kept telling me what a bad night he'd had. All we could do was make the best of a bad show and with Valerian completing exercises and reiterating that we should see another orthopedist about the instability in Russel's left leg that will always prevent him from walking independently and keep him prone to falls and fractures, he left. Dad was pretty despondent by the prognosis and told me as much in the evening when he said he is praying very hard that we will be inspired to go to the right doctors who will, in turn, be inspired to heal Russel.

Running Errands:
     When Valerian left, I did too. I went straight to my photocopy man Jay to get the SBI form printed out for change of my online passwords. The loss of my Documents has hit me hardest in the loss of all my passwords. I have no idea now how I will get into my subscriptions of The New York Times, The Times of London, Waitrose in London, the Bobst Library at NYU or even my Fulbright shells! It is all a mess and I am really regretting that I had never emailed that file to myself! I guess I will cross each bridge as I come to it--for the moment, I have also lost my Twitter password and have no idea what to do to reset that! However, the banking one is most urgent as I need to stay abreast of my balance in my Indian bank account--hence the need to address that issue first.
     Jay did the job in minutes and with the forms in duplicate, I walked to the SBI--only to find a huge notice on their front gate to say that all employees have been relegated to election duty training and so the bank would remain closed! Can you even believe it???!!! Apart from the fact that it causes so much inconvenience to patrons, just think of the loss to their business at a time when India's economy is in the doldrums and needs every shot in the arm it can get to boost it! I was aghast! However, with really nothing I could do in the matter, I returned home and got down to the task of transcribing interviews.
     I managed to transcribe two more--with Mark Nunes and Francis Mendes of the Symphony Orchestra of India--before it was time for me to have my lunch: chicken mince with potato, dal and okra--and then to shower and get dressed for my next appointment. This involved an interview at the Prithvi Theater in Juhu and since it is quite far away, I gave myself more than an hour to get a bus (which goes right up to the spot from very close to my home) to get there.
     But as fate would have it, the bus did not come for 20 minutes and since I did not want to be late, I hailed a passing rick and sailed off down Carter Road to Juhu Beach and was at the venue on time. So much for my consciousness to be on time. I was settled down in a spot where mosquitoes were eating me alive and told that Kunal Kapoor, whom I was scheduled to meet, had been delayed in a previous meeting and would be with me in 15 minutes. They were excruciating minutes as the mosquitoes made mincemeat of me! And his 15 minutes turned into a half hour.  Good Job I had carried along my former student Priti's novel to read: Out With Lanterns--which, by the way, I am enjoying immensely. It is beautifully written and quite quite funny indeed.

An Interview with Kunal Kapoor:
     Apart from finding out about the Prithvi Theater itself, which Kunal runs as a Trustee of the establishment, I was keen to find out about his pedigree in terms of English-language theater. He is the grandson of two famed theatrical families--on his paternal side, his grandfather is Prithviraj Kapoor, founder of the Prithvi Raj Studios and on his maternal side, his grandparents are Geoffrey and Laura Kendal who founded the traveling theater troupe in India that was called Shakespeareana.  As a child, I'd had the privilege of seeing them perform in my school (when I was in Std VII) and it was definitely my first introduction to Shakespeare. I can clearly recall seeing Laura play Lady Macbeth in the famous "Out Damned Spot" monologue and Geoffrey playing Othello in the scene before he strangles poor Desdemona. It is only now in retrospect that I realize how lucky I was to have been witness to history for the Kendals brought The Bard to the attention of countless school children in India. As Kunal put it, it is unlikely that anyone in India over the age of 55 who went to an English medium school did not have the pleasure of watching his grandparents in action. Of course, they were joined in this endeavor by their daughters, Jennifer, who met her future husband Shashi Kapoor when he joined the troupe, and Felicity who, after her parents folded up their business, went to London and pursued a career in acting there. She aced it quite early in the game with Good Neighbors (a show I love--with Penelope Keith, Richard Briers and Paul Edington--all of whom became small-screen stars in the UK). In more recent years, I have seen Felicity on the London stage at the Trafalgar Studios playing opposite Nicholas Le Prevost in The Last Cigarette. And, of course, she became a household name in the US with Rosemary and Thyme, the TV show, in which she plays the role of a amateur gardening detective, opposite Pam Ferris.
     My interview with Kunal went along smoothly. He was kind and thoughtful enough to call for a mosquito coil when he found how much I was fidgeting under the onslaught of those pesky mosquitoes. He offered me refreshment but I took nothing as I'd just had lunch and was counting calories. He spoke with ease about his memories of the Kendals and his contribution to Prithvi Theater and what their aims and objectives continue to be as the establishment enters its 40th year. It was a time for back-patting but also for reaching forward. Kunal then put me on to two books that were upstairs in the offices of Prithvi Theater--the autobiography of Geoffrey Kendal and a commemorative book called The Prithviwallahs that was brought out on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the theater.
     Expressing my gratitude to Kunal, I made my way up into the bowels of the theater, through semi-darkness, past the wings and the Green Rooms and arrived at the office where I then spent the next hour browsing through the books. I have added them to my bibliography and hope to find them at the library of the NCPA as Kunal could not part with them--and very sensibly too! If I do not get them at the NCPA library, I shall see if my South Asian Studies section librarian Aruna Maguier at the Bobst Library at NYU can get them for me when I go back home. Finally, there is always Amazon through which I can purchase the books using my faculty development funds--but, of course, this will have to be after I get back home.
     I left the Prithvi Theater after taking pictures of some of the posters of its English plays. I also surveyed the premises--the book store and the cafe of which Kunal had spoken--and then I was on my way.  I took a rickshaw and got home feeling ready for a hot pot of lemony tea and a slice of cake.
At this point, a nap felt very temping and I curled up for one.  About a half hour later, I left straight for church for the novena which began at 6.45 followed by Mass at 7.00.
     Dad and I walked back home to his gate together where I took my leave and went home. At my door, my next-door neighbor--bless his heart--asked me if I was up for a vegetable sandwich! I told him I would be delighted. He told me they were making them at home. About fifteen minutes later, he rang my doorbell and presented me with a freshly toasted sandwich filled with cucumber, tomato, beetroot and potato--the typical Bombay vegetable street sandwich that is absolutely delicious with a lick of tomato ketchup. I enjoyed it while watching the second part of Hinterland. Then, a quick chat with Llew who is hard at work in our Southport home installing central air-conditioning ducts, and I found myself feeling really sleepy. I decided not to fight it. But 9.30 pm, I switched the light off, ignoring the determination I had felt to input one more interview before calling it a day. You simply have to succumb to fatigue, sometimes!
     Until tomorrow...