A journey begins

Ninasam is far away from the rest of the world. I speak of course of
the new geography, the one that is not measured in distances, miles,
time taken to get there, but the one that is measured in terms of
accessibility, and connectivity, and proximity to 'centers' and 'hubs'
like Bombay - which today is suffering for being such a hub - but more
on that later.

You can get to Ninasam a variety of ways, by Air to Bangalore and then
an overnight bus, by air to mangalore, and then a 5 hour drive, by
train to Honnavar, on the Konkan railway, an hour past Goa (oh the
temptation to get off the train there!) and then a 2 hour drive to the
Taluk headquarters of Sagar, and 10 km down the road to Heggodu. In
the middle of Arecanut growing country, farm country and plantations
that extend for 100 km in all directions, and in the middle of all of
it, a theatre. 750 seats, proscenium arch, 24 channels of dimmers for
lighting, and a beatiful stage space upon which to perform. This is
the flagship of the Ninasam Theatre Instititue, where each year, a 100
applicants vie for 20 seats to train in the best of contemporary
Indian stage craft. This is where I am.

I chose to get here by train, all in all, its the most direct and
straightforward way here from Bombay. It also gave me something
crucial for any one coming from the city to a place like this. Time to
switch gears. I was embarking on a theatre project with thier
students, half way through thier course, to devise from scratch the
tale of Gunadhya, only documented in Somdeva's Kathasaritsagar or the
Ocean of Stories. Not even having a script in hand, but just a story
from the opening section of a compedium of stories - reputed to be the
oldest collection of Indian stories on hand.

If that wasn't enough of a challenge. I'm here, directing a play for
performance, in Kannada. For someone who speaks only english, gets by
in Hindi, and knows a smattering of words from Tamil and Malayalam,
how exactly is this going to work?

I also needed the sleep, because the night before I got on the train,
I spent up, filming. For some reason unknown to me and generally not
in my great plan of life, I found myself playing a Gay, Coke-snorting,
South Bombay Parsi Socialite in a film. Nice detour?

14 hours of train and 2 hours of car later, I found myself in Heggodu,
a quiet, orderly village, whose center piece is the NTI Theatre.

In that absolute silence, which was quite deafening after months of
incessant city noise, hours of trian rattles, and then a taxi, I
walked through the small campus to find the students - on all fours,
extending thier bellies downward and then arching thier backs in time
with thier breath.

So this was them, young, in thier late teens early twenties, here was
something I'd been dying to engage with ever since I got back to
India. Actors. Complete total, actors. People who are training and
doing, and living and breathing this craft. (In this case, at the
begginning of thier careers).

Language be damned, its going to be a non-issue in ten minutes of our
communicating and getting an idea of what is to be achieved.

The idea. Is to tell this story.