A comedy about a philosophy? Well... that's a cliche... Or is it?

All through my adolescent life and through my youth and ... wait for it ... later on in the age of reckoning, I've grown up with the comical offerings of S. Ve. Sekar and Crazy Mohan, and later Kamal Hassan and Vivek and ... wait for it ... later on, the likes of Seinfeld and George Carlin. Theatre is a crucible in which spontaneity is the spark that kindles chortles. TV and Cinema is the pulpit where that spark becomes a conflagration that captivates masses. And stand up and improvisation is where the hand of god, that is, comedic creation is witnessed and revered first hand. Among the pantheon of intelligent comedy that has defined my defining years walks a new titan today: the United States Inspiring Artists  (USIA) group.

Their latest offering, the sixth installment of (yes... sigh!) six stage plays is called Kanna Thorakkanom Saami (Open Thy Eyes, Ye Gods - Biblical liberty of prose liberally taken ofcourse). This play has put a rather heavy capstone on their altruistic raison-de-etre, to raise money for various charitable causes in India including educating close to a hundred children. They have, with this one time performance (erstwhile Soviet spies, take notes... if you could go back in time and record the play, your use for one time notepads as secret codes would be obviated - TV execs, if you're reading, I have a sci-fi idea for you right here... no charge), raised a cumulative 40,000 Dollars for education. In Indian Rupees, notwithstanding the cool new symbol for our national currency and all, is enough to get about a hundred kids from pre-school through college. As one of my old friends would say, as shit goes, "good shit" indeed. And there in lies the greatness of this drama. The empathy, the purpose, and the comedy.

As one my my greatest living icons - Vivek - once said, "good comedy is a hard business." As another great living icon - Dr. Abdul Kalam said to him, "Good comedy with a message is even harder." And dare I quote another great before you pull me up on charges of plagiarism, the creator of the hit show Frasier, quite possibly the father of the longest running sitcom  - since P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster - once said (paraphrasing as I'm neither Churchill's speechwriter to remember every alcohol induced rambling nor Carl Rove to retro-modify George Bushes' left vs right fiascoes), we intend for our show to be funny when it needs to be and serious when it should be. Comedy should flow naturally.

That is what the writing of Sumitra Ramjee, does in droves here. Her latest play is all about breaking the boundaries between castes. It is about smashing social mores - especially in India - about taboos regarding LBGT and transvestites. It is about the fundamental belief in a higher power, whether you believe in God or not. It is more than anything, about embracing the differences in cultures and making the world a better place to live in for everyone through the fundamental understanding that we were all put on this earth for specific reasons. Those reasons may be hidden to use at first, or worse, be unappealing. But the simple truth is, without embracing our raison-de-etre (yes I'm clever, that's why that term has been used twice, you philistines), our lives are worth naught. Be it the eunuch or the transvestite, be it the non-believing slum dweller or the jaded new age college goer, everyone starts out as caricatures who are forced to explore new dimensions as their characters discover potentials in their co-stars.

And at this point, let me shout out to the director, Mohan, who has taken this potentially chasmic script and molded it into performances worth cosmic rapture. He managed to eke out body language and vocal modulations that made the comical dialogues into living images that make us emote to the plight of the condition the characters suffer. A superb script needs a superb director to get the best qualities of the actors to gel with the pre-natal vision of the writer to make the end product a child worth keeping. Kanna Thorakanom Saami is a marriage of visions that puts us in splits at the same time as it splits the atoms of stigma. And the music by Ramani, which was top notch speaks volumes about having an Ilayaraaja collaborator on your crew. Doesn't hurt, does it?

No matter how good a play may be screen written or directed, it is up to the people in the rouge in front of the bright yellows that good lines, laughter inducing or thought provoking, may be delivered. The cast of USIA equaled or even surpassed the previously mentioned veterans I've grown up with in achieving this. The local dialect of Madras is one of the hardest to master as it includes equal parts of culture, swagger, abandon and just plain **** you. To switch from corporate polity to brass tacks boondocks, which is what these people must have had to do (I've heard them utter both) requires a special talent that I've seldom seem outside the dorm rooms of the shadiest colleges. From Balajee, the cardsharp lead, to Jeeva, the all-too-common beggar at the streetlight, every single person on that stage knew what they were doing, and more importantly, what they were saying. Including the scintillating dance be Arvind, Gaurav and Aswini choreographed by Shilpa (hey, hey, hey, namma ooru naatu thiruvizha paathirukkiya? Tamizh kalacharam without item song? What are you, distended from time or something?). If I've left out any one's name, its only because I forgot.

Oh yeah, four kudos that I felt were worth mentioning... Kala from Florida whose contribution to the play was the amazing makeup of all the artists - brilliant job as only someone sitting in row one could have truly appreciated, Shyamala, who supplied the costumes from India, Meera, who made sure said costumes got the the set, and Jeeva and her family, who provided the premises for the play's rehearsals.

Every single character was pivotal. The Skeptical ragamuffin father who believes a new deal equates to cash to the loving mother who respects ideals, from the vagabond son turned by the power of love to the haughty girlfriend ... err ... also turned by love, to the thugs who portray the worst in the human condition, and to the eunuch (also played by the indefatigable and indefinably - he has "something" - talented Mohan) who represents hope for a finer future, everyone, but simply everyone lived their characters. This, more than anything else made the play for me.

I was lucky to see it. I wish the USIA well in all their forthcoming forays, and wish the kids of India a golden tomorrow. With stalwarts like this, and with the support of the 500 or so who turned up of this play, their futures are secure. Please be on the look out for future offerings of the USIA. Even if you don't believe in the brand of comedy they preach, their message is noble. Support them in any way you can. I know Keith Olbermann is dead to the American public, and he is dead to me as well, but, "Good night and good luck."

         

People I know

Al Pacino is and has been in so many iconic roles that it is difficult to name one and say, yes, this is the character that defined him. Be it Don Corleone's son, or be it Robert DeNiro's nemesis in Heat, or be it a professor in the altogether crappy movie 88 minutes, or the blind man or the political adviser in the moniker of this article, he is, and always will be, a legend of Hollywood.  In staying with this title, there are a few people in everybody's life who have played a significantly large role in shaping your destiny that you cannot detail you like without loss of generality by not stating their contributions.

First off... growing up in India and wanting to chase your passion, you have to have good parents. When I say good parents, I mean the kind of people who will say, "okay champ, do what you want." There are very few who do that for the simple reason that when you grow up, even the India of today is a cutthhroat cruel place that values connections more than creativity. My mom and dad did that for me. Even though their background was decidedly middle class. 

My dad started his life as a lowly engineer in a public transport corporation, and yet let me chase my dream everytime it changed, before settling into its final form as an Environmental Engineer. My mom had an opportunity to be a superstar chef or an ace TV reporter or even a movie superstar. She is beautiful, talented, and even more than that, she is  a gifted individual par excellence. She is an artist and a linguist that would have put other savants to shame. Not as a son, but as an unbiased observer do I say this. And yet she turned down every offer that came her way, because her sense to family was more important. And as I grew up, they made sacrifices that defied common sense and logic as to why they would do this. Turns out, it was for one kid, who they hoped would make it big in his chosen field one day.

MY uncle Balaji, a surrogate father, or his wife Priya, who I adopted as my aunt...  they were as important parents to me as my next best  own. My grandmothers, Jayalakshmi and Saroja... universes apart in the way they expressed love, but lightseconds together in the way it came to me. My friends, Subash, Vasanth, Shankar, Jagadeesan , Sreekanth and Anand, contemporaries who were as close as the planets in the inner solar system as far as how fast light travels to bridge that gap. 

Later, when I had a chance to strike out on my own in the states, it was two other people who supported me in ways that were straight out of fairy-tale fantasy. Have you ever heard of aunts that are as loving as mothers? Even in Indian sitcoms of any language, where extended families are quite simply about usurping you wealth, Indian imagination has never gone past the evil aunt. But in my case, my aunts were lightning rods that did not let even the worst of the worst personal tragedies (mine or theirs), stand in the way of unconditional motherly love. 

Sumitra and Meera, poles apart as human beings were always there for me as no biological mother could be. For, a biological mother would have a physical bond that made it an evolutionary directive to take care of her child. But, here... these two women, with just the non-scientifically-quantifiable love in their hearts and literally no physical rule, love me as their own son to this day... what are they? Angels in human form? Do Angles even exist? If they do, they are not called Ramba, Oorvasi or Menaka... they are called Sumitra and Meera.

And what about my late uncle Ramjee, who bought me my first yoyo, or Santhanam, who told me, "you can call me anytime for anything?" These were guys who were executives and the busy men of the world who had stuff to do 24/7.  What then, of my cousins Venu, Shilpa and Keshav, who amidst their schedules of excruitiation, would have a minute to talk to me about the most inane of things. Venu, who would help me out with the most arduous tasks, or Shilpa, who would make sure that my limited time with family was well spent, or Keshav, who would ensure that my obtuse brain would grasp the truths of reality and fantasy as best as it could?

And Finally, when I met the girl that will make my life for the remainders of my days, I know that good things are about to happen. Here I am, finally in a place where I can comment on somebody else's misfortune with equanimity when they get out for a duck. How could I do that unless there was a family to look after me and a Swetha in my life and unless Sachin had retired? Not possible.

These are all personal stalwarts who have stood by me through the tests of fire. But there is one that stands tall among all of them. That he is not even related to me by the most wishful thinking of metaphors is irrelevant. He is Sachin Tendulkar. There is one simple reason. Whether it be his blitzkrieg 87 vs New Zealand that first got me into One Day Cricket in an age when test matches were dominating, or his Desert Storm knock in Sharjah when the power went out when me and my dad tried to watch the match in my granddad's house and we first first bonded over Cricket, or the 137 against Pakistan in Chennai when I first realised your worth for the Indian Team, or the 2011 World Cup when I first truly understood that Sachin Tendulkar HAS BEEN my adult life, your career was all about the FIRSTS. It taught me about how much I respected the PEOPLE I KNOW.