/a/muse(d)

Your Hair Should Be Orange

Expressive, deep, and one of a kind. You pull off “weird” well - hardly anyone notices.

Or something like that.

I guess today is special in a few ways.

Today, I taught my first full school day without supervision. Ever. Seems it will be the first of many. I feel slightly proud but mainly exhausted.

More importantly, this seems to be the day when we can celebrate the end of the Mighty Thesis, which Ben has completed and handed in. Finally. The ride has not been without its fair share of hiccups, flipouts and headdesks, but for all intents and purposes, the battle is over. And I am pleased to report that we are both alive and still very much married.

Come to think of it, on this day, 10 months ago, Ben and I woke up for the first time as married people. I recall it was a lovely morning.

Well, last night finally arrived after a month and a half of anticipation. Ellie and I caught the train into Newtown and met Jess and Lucy for dinner at a little Pakistani resturaunt which could actually have been in Pakistan, except for the fact that you wouldn’t get sick from drinking the water or eating the lettuce. It was inexpensive and the food excellent. You could watch them making naan in a tandoori oven…thrills!

After dinner came the highlight of the evening…a birthday present of tickets to see ‘Merchants of Bollywood’ at the Enmore theatre!

It was in every way Bollywood, except without the excessive violence and bad special effects. A singing, dancing spectacular, complete with lip-synching, brilliant costumes, colour, comedy and amazing choreography. Set in the context of a succesful young Bollywood choreographer’s reminiscences and journey back to her hometown to reconcile with her dying alcholholic grandfather (who was once also a brilliant choreographer), the history of the Bollywood phenomenon was traced from its more traditional dance style beginings in black and white film, to the high-energy, disco-style, revealing outfit-wearing dance of Hindi movies today. It was very funny in parts, melodramatic in others, and made a point of openly admitting that all Bollywood films are essentially the same, simply set apart by their individual dances and songs.

I was amazed at the dancers, the costumes and the sheer volume of choreography and practice that must have gone into making the dances (of which the show was almost totally comprised) so seamless. It was fun to hear well known songs from Bollywood films, and hear the reactions of Indian members of the audience when well known actors or dancers came onstage. It was the sort of show which you hoped would not stop, but keep trailing you along in it’s sparking blur of colours and movement, which made you want to dance too. At the end, the cast made the audience stand up and ‘dance’ for them, beginning with a traditional Indian arm and shoulder movement and moving to the John Travolta style ceiling-floor move. That’s one way to ensure a standing ovation!

As is the case with many Bollywood movies, this show was sweet, entertaining escapism. Five very enthusiastic thumbs up.