Ode to Avante Garde in India

The past week Shobhu and I have been immersing our selves in the cultural scene in Mumbai. Balli aur Shambhu staged at Prithvi was theatre which I long for. Witty, Satirical, depth, poingnancy and irony. All the rasas in the righ measure. The play explored the interaction between two old men dealing with personal loss and family neglect. Our friend Gopal had a short but seminal role. A small narrative twist at the end was wonderful. Our friends from Uttaranchal who run such a beautiful experiment in conscious business called Himalayan Village were in Bombay. Being their first trip, Pav Bhaji, theatre and the traffic intersected. The other day we saw Hamlet which brought together Shakespeare,  Dhrupad, Karnataka's dance form YakshaGana in a compelling and intense manner. There arer parts where it is difficult to maintain the intensity but the effort was commendable. My personal love for Dhrupad took me there and shobs love for Shakespeare. Deepa had to help me out because there is a complexity with the key characters played out in Hindi and English. The spirit of what is intelligent, provocative is still alive. The final piece of the cultural ensemble was our visit to the Kala Ghoda festival opening day where we went for the Heritage walk including getting a peek into the Times of India archives. My eyes were alive with the thought now I can access the back pages of history. It would be fascinating to see the seminal events through the eyes of those great leaders this country produced during the freedom movement.

We are in clear need of many such leaders and the good news that there is hope. After my return I have personally met what I called humans with Maha Purush qualities who inspire and built a team of talent. In the blog I hope to share the qualities of people I have interacted with some. Some of them are not Indians. There is something about leadership which transcends and it needs to be experienced directly. How much ever you read about leadership being witha  true leader is different. Sourabh Sarkar, Balaji Sampath, Steve Mckay are three humans I have met whose multiple intellgiences quotient is high as well as their awarenes of their own self.. Over the past years I have interacted closely with other individuals who have personal qualities that allow them to deal with situations in a manner that integrates people and issues rather than disintegrates.