More Swotting at the Library of the NCPA

Monday, May 20, 2019
Bombay

More Swotting at the Library of the NCPA

     Namaste from Bombay!
     It is a relief to awake on May mornings in Bombay to the coolness of an air-conditioned room--even if I wake up too early for my own good--6.00 am today. As usual, I checked my Twtter feed, blogged quickly and made my brekkie: muesli with coffee.  I made myself a club sandwich with the last of my cold salted tongue and packed it up for my lunch. Then, I was in the shower, dressed and getting out by bus and train to South Bombay to spend the day reading at the library of the NCPA which is mercifully cool as a cucumber in this sizzling summer heat.
     I arrived there at 10.30 and read straight through till 1.00 pm when I stopped for lunch. I completed note-taking from Kumud Mehta's wonderful 1960 Ph.D. thesis on the History of English Drama in Bombay that goes back to the 17th century and stops at 1900.  What fantastic background material it provides with startling facts, figures and stats! Hats off to the women who did pioneering work ahead of mine--I am also indebted to Shanta Gokhale. They have paved the way for the kind of writing into which I cannot wait to sink my own teeth.
     I joined Hutoxi and Jimi at her desk for lunch where I enjoyed my sandwich immensely but restricted my time off to just half an hour. Back at my desk, I began reading the autobiography of Geoffrey Kendal entitled The Shakespearewallah which tells about his birth and early life in the Lake District in England (he took his stage name from the picturesque town of Kendal which I had visited about 15 years ago--he was born Geoffrey Bragg), his meeting of his actress wife Laura Liddell with whom he spent a lifetime as a traveling player, the inclusion of their daughters--the late Jennifer Kapoor and the lovely Felicity Kendal--in their troupe called Shakespeareana that traveled all over the schools of India and Pakistan presenting excerpts from the Bard's work. I had the privilege (like almost everyone who is between the ages of 40 and 65 and who went to an English-medium school in India) of seeing them perform in my own school when I was just nine. It was my first introduction to Shakespeare and I shall never never forget seeing the 'perfumes of Arabia' scene with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and the deathbed scene in Othello just before Desdemona is killed. I remember thinking 'My God! What language is this?!'
     So you can imagine what a fabulous time I had reading this work in the library today while outside Bombay is cooking under the brutal heat of summer. I can think of no better way to pass these sweltering days than in an air-conditioned library surrounded by the wealth of its books that includes the personal collection of the doyen Adi Marzipan as well as other works in the performing arts. A few weeks ago, I had met Kunal Kapoor, Geoffrey's grandson, who runs the Prithvi Theater. He had directed me to a couple more of the books that document that exciting, irascible world of his maternal grandparents who never owned a home, carried the sum total of their worldly goods on their backs as they traveled across the Indian sub-continent from Peshawar to Palghar articulating the words of Shakespeare and introducing generations of Indian students to the magic of his creations. I have about fifty pages more of the book to finish and then will begin my note-taking on the sections from which I would like to quote--probably on Wednesday.
     That done, I left the library at 4.00 pm, jumped into a bus and made my way back to Churchgate Station from where I took a train to Bandra. At the bus-stop, I met Ian and his friend Neil from church. They are former 'shippies' (master mariners who once captained merchant ships) who now teach maritime science at the training school in Navy Nagar. They were returning from a day's work and were kind enough to buy my ticket.
     Back home, I brewed a pot of lemony tea and had it with a dried apricot stuffed with raisins and walnuts (from Chorus Bazaar in Tashkent) and a slice of mango. Then, after I'd taken stock of some email to which I needed to respond, I left for Dad's place where I spent about 20 minutes with Russel before Dad and I left for Mass.
     We parted company at Dad's gate and I carried on home. I made myself a dinner plate with elbow pasta and mince and a helping of mixed vegetables with more mango for dessert. All the while, I watched a movie called Wild Target with Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt, Rupert Grint and Martin Freeman. It is a really wild caper that was, at times, farcical, but is set in my beloved London which I really got to feast on. A good entertaining comedy in which Nighy is the serious guy--the wet blanket--and proves that he actually has a range!
     It was about 11.30 pm when I went to bed after trying to read some pages of my new novel--but my eyes refused to stay open...
     Until tomorrow...