Kamal - the boss


Got back from the village visit just a couple of hours back. Till the time I get ready with some real post just check out this interesting stuff.

Village (Re)Visit

Same time three years back, I should have been following up some work in Tupni/Padli/Mojap or something like that. These are some villages of Okhamandal, Jamanagar district, Gujarat. As an MT (Management Trainee) with Tata Chemicals, I was expected to do a rural stint for 2 months. It was my first real experience of the Bharat and enjoyed every moment of it. Especially the exposure visit with about 50 Gujarati villagers to Bhuj, conducting some gram sabha meeting, lots of masala tea, sensitising the little chaps in the locals schools about sanitation and personal hygiene, long drives in a very old jeep with the super-driver Rambhai, stay at Tupni - that was the Dussera time too!, clicking some good and many not-so-good snaps, eating groundnuts - straight from under the ground, taking the Tupni Sarpanch's bull for a walk - was really scared, singing "Athaanda Idhaanda Arunachalam naanthaanda..." for the villagers, doing some PRA work etc.

In another three hours' I'm supposed to get going for the week-long village visit of the 81st Foundation Course, LBSNAA. This time I'm going to a village in Lalitpur,UP. But I feel, over the last three years, my skill-level when it comes to doing things like this - has in fact gone down! Will be happy if this feeling remains still a feeling even after this village visit; and not a reality.

Mouse trapped

Sometimes we let others decide for us, and sometimes such decisions prove to be quite fruitful - better than one's own decision. One latest instance of this was my involvement in the play Mousetrap, as a part of a competition here. Usually a reluctant soul when it comes to such things, I was somehow pulled in by one of my friends. I was asked to take care of lights/sounds etc. I picked up a little slowly, along with my two other crew-fellows. Soon we realised we were really interested in this job. I had always liked the job done by Lights/Soundz/Backstage Dept of BITS...and the feeling of doing that here gave me a kind of kick. The whole thing came out so well that Mousetrap was a roaring success…finished with three Awards including the one for the best Stage Effects!!!

I have many other decisions to take – some very important ones too – should I do what I want and should I take help? One more thing, till now I have not got the plot of Mousetrap properly – I just know when and how to coordinate sound and light to match the action on stage!

The Queen’s Gambit (Review)

(Glad that my review got published in Readers Write  - Thank you so much Baradwaj Rangan! ) Streaming on Netflix and consisting of seven epi...