Harry potter’s magic!

No I am not talking about next J.K. Rowling’s novel or next Warner Bros. production. Just close your eyes for a few seconds, and assume being in Harry Potter’s magical world. Imagine the place you are in, the interesting things around you. Think of yourself being in Harry Potter’s mind and soul as the great magical power within him. Think of all the powers, the charm, the fame and the temptations associated with it.

Now, think of playing it on stage? Can you really do that? What sort of play would that be? Harry Potter’s magic wand? Bloggers, let me introduce a theatre group that allows you to be just that (and whatever you dream of) ….

"Yours Truly"

I guess you must be wondering whether it is name of theatre group or ending of a letter. I still remember the days, when I used to end my e-mails with this ending, probably a hang over from school days where the endings “Yours Sincerely”, “Yours Faithfully”, “Yours Affectionately” really mattered. Well, in exams anyways. Wonder no more. This blog entry does not have anything to do with the art letter writing anyways (btw how email has changed the art of letter writing could make for another interesting reading/writing). This blog is inspired by the theatre workshop by the same name, which I joined sometime back. I was not aware, that the name of the workshop could be a problem, until I got a call from the bank whose cheque, I had given to the workshop people. “Sir, I am calling from …. Bank…… What kind of cheque is this? Yours Truly? Did you mean a self cheque?” I told her, that I know better practical jokes than this, and bank would be the last place I would try one.

Okay, enough of playing around with the name. When, I started thinking of joining a theatre, I had an open mind (easy to have open mind, when you don’t have anything in it anyways [:-D]). I just wanted to find a better way to spend time on weekends rather then burning my eyes in front of TV. When I told my friends about my intention of joining the theatre workshop, I got the usual comments which you get when you try something new. “Theatre? It’s a great skill and takes years of practice for you to be able to make an appearance on stage. For all you know, you might be a lamp-post for my first show.” Point taken anyways, but I did not mind being a tree. Just that theatre people would have to manage with a very short tree.

So, with high enthusiasm I interacted with Nandini, one of the first members of Yours Truly group. She asked to come on a Sunday around 4 for registration. True, to my reputation I made it around 5, and was probably the last person to the join the workshop. There I met Ranji, who told me that about different formats of theatre that this group deals in.


The first day of the workshop arrived and again I made it to the workshop only ½ hour late. Accustomed (rather) to the embarrassment of late entry, I tried to find the corner of the big hall. As I was dashing towards the corner, I was asked to tell my name with gesture. Punishment for late entry may be. Then Ranji enacted the one for himself, just to make me comfortable. Running in slow motion, he spoke out loudly, "I ammm Rrrrunnnjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjji…………". I realized I had to come up with something real fast. Running out of ideas, I came up with V for Vineet gesture. (Glad that my name did not start with Q or R or something like that). And just that this much embarrassment was not enough, I had to see 20 simultaneous replays for the same gesture, enacted by the other newbies. However, slight consolation was seeing the same treatment being met out to other people, who strangely arrived even later than me.

Then everyone settled down and we were asked to enact some background scenes like one in the playground, a wedding scene, a railway platform etc. I enacted a child playing cricket and guy proposing on someone else wedding (Just take the still from Dil Chahta Hai). From there on, I knew it was going to be a fun all the way. All my apprehensions about performing on stage, started to disappear as we enacted different kinds of situation and objects workshop after workshop.

Sorry, for being carried away with what you could call “My first experiences in Yours Truly…”.

From the first day of workshop till the end we all enacted different situations, backgrounds, animate and inanimate objects. Initially, I wondered how it would help us, but then I realized it allowed us to get in touch with different aspects of theatre, that we would otherwise miss or take much longer time to comprehend, if we were asked to take up a role in a play straightaway. Now that I look back at it. We tried lots of different activities during the workshop, which we enjoyed thoroughly, but I am sure were mostly not able to comprehend of magnitude of learning and experience gained by those activities. Not to mention the sheer joy of performing to those activities on stage, and seeing other members performing them too.

Lets see what all we tried out during the workshop.

We tried enacting different backdrops/settings like railway platform, playground, temple, school, kitchen etc.

We became inanimate objects sometimes singularly while other times being in group. The objects ranged from traditional objects enacted on stage like tree, lamp-post etc. to more bizarre yet challenging ones like kitchen utensils, office accessories etc.

As we progressed in the workshop we tried enacting different situations without dialogs, showing different situations using fixed dialogs. I found this one most interesting as it was interesting to see different depictions of 3-dialog set, “I am going”, “Why”, “I have to” sequence), enacting a short story by interchanging the roles frequently. Imagine jailor being prisoner in very next scene, or worse the hero being the heroine the very next dialog.I think this is something even Ekta Kapoor can’t boast of doing in her endless death-duplicate-rebirth sagas.

One of most challenging ones was that of enacting a story told by different members by constantly changing the levels .i.e. by constantly switching between sitting, standing and standing high postures dialog after dialog. I have to say that this was the toughest one. Needless, to the say while it was terrible experience on stage, the audience had a laugh riot, seeing the utter chaos on the stage.

We enacted different stories told by participants impromptu. In impromptu you literally have no time to prepare or coordinate amongst each other. The only preparation time you can sneak in is the one, you get when the story is being told. Initially, it appeared as if the central characters in the story get the best part.

However, as we did story after story, we realized that central characters are limited to the character they are playing, while others can play different objects/characters/emotions during the play. I must say, all the performances were excellent, and how somehow able to comprehend how something like “Whose line is it anyway?” can be produced anyways. One performance that comes to my mind is that of the lost bag. Yes, a lost bag. That’s beauty of theatre, you don’t have to play the mundane characters. You can play the in-animate objects which sometimes play a central role in a story. Imagine playing Pinocchio’s nose, or Aladdin’s lamp, or Methane Gas in Bhopal Gas tragedy, Itch Powder (I enjoyed this role) in a familiar itchy story, or Harry Potter magic wand (the inspiration behind the title), or a lost bag. The sort of emotions associated with these inanimate objects and sheer possibilities in terms of their depiction, are far greater than that can be associated with any living human character in these stories. That’s what makes theatre so great. And that’s what makes “Yours Truly”, even greater because it gives a chance to newcomers to understand and experience the magic of theatre in a very subtle and fun way. Trust me, I would have really not thought of prospect of playing these characters ever (even though my over-acting would most probably murder the heart and soul of these characters [:-D]), had I not been introduced to this kind of theatre.

Towards the end of the workshop, we were happy to know that we will be putting an actual stage performance consisting of a couple of semi-scripted plays “The Unknown” and “A pair of Glasses”, and four impromptu performances in groups of 5-6 each, marking the end of the workshop. First task was to find the name of the show. Hmmmm, all of us came with lots of suggestions, and finally it was down to 2, "Squared" (from Ranji for 2*2 performances) and "Chautanki" (from myself, a adjoin of "Char" (4 in Hindi) and "Nautanki" (Stage play in Hindi)). Somehow, the name "Chautanki" was accepted as the name of the show, for its witty appeal .

I term the plays as semi scripted because the roles and story was fixed, but dialogs were left to individual characters. Again, fixing the dialogs in advance was a good idea so that all of us get to think over our characters, and also not to divert everyone’s attention to remembering the dialogs, rather than way of delivering them and more importantly fitting into our assigned roles.

The rehearsals were fun, and a particularly interesting rehearsal session was doing our play in fast forward. What made it particularly hard for the team I was associated with was that I took almost 25% time in my small part of morning walk, staring at girls and fighting with my serious son, true to the “crazy old man” character. Actually, I think it was my boring PJs that forced Nandini to add the crazy twist to old mans character.

The final show spread over a span of 2 days. Our play “The Unknown” was played on both the days, as the number of characters in the play were more than 5-6 member groups initially assigned for the play.

Each of us had butterflies not only because it was first time on stage for most of us, and also because how people would take the short plays and impromptu performances. However, our fears vanished when Runji made audience interact with each other (and with us also on the second day) thereby dropping the hint to the audience of this kind of theatrical performance.

From my side, I thought that I was not able to put up a good enough performance in plays as well as the impromptu, although slight over-acting and exaggeration helped on the second day (not being modest here, just being honest). However, most of the performances in the show were awesome, and particularly the impromptus. Our impromptus before the show usually used to very funny and sometimes with dialogs that would bring the censor scissors into the picture. However, on the 2nd day of the show, the first impromptu was based on Bhopal Gas Tragedy, which scared everyone. However, it was treat to watch it being performed on the stage (as were the other impromptus). Some of the scenes that impromptu were really compelling enough to providing fitting depiction of the tragedy.

After the show, we all had a great team lunch in “Legacy of Punjab”. The food was delicious the most noticeable thing for me was the XXL size plates which were large enough to accommodate large quantities 4-5 dishes in one go!

Finally, there was all to familiar good bye, “Yours Truly” isstyle. No I am not talking about emotional speeches, or a tearful farewell. Congratulations, Hugs, Kisses, Bums, to all the members.
No wonder, no one ever left “Yours Truly” workshop sessions without the ceremonious goodbye!

PS: The photographs in the blog from top to bottom in order are: Nandini hoping for the best, Ranji giving last minute tips, a scene from impromptu play, Methane Gas in action, the tickets for Chautanki, a still from "A pair of Glasses" and finally the "Yours Truly" troop. Thanks to Vipul for his great camerawork in capturing the moments that made "Yours Truly" an unforgettable experience.