Remember, remember etc. What’s the betting I’ve said exactly the same thing over the past 3 years as well. I have an old man’s love for tradition, with the old man’s penchant for repetition. But I have not yet lost my sense of time. Val was saying it was just 2 years ago that we were spending Bonfire Night with Brent + Liz, + I had to point out that it was 3.
We did much the same today as the past couple of days: a turn around the fair; breakfast + various chores in town; siesta; + then to the fair again for the late afternoon, up till sunset. Paul returned our camera early in the morning, + we spent substantial amounts of energy, time, + concentration on taking some photos for ourselves. It was not easy. We were trying to capture pictures of the people, wonderfully photogenic with their brilliantly coloured turbans + saris. At first, we got a number of views of people’s backs, + only one or 2 full frontals. The sunset was nothing like as brilliant as last night’s, but we were able to line up a co-operating camel or 2 – they are far more pliant models. Late, we went to see a traditional Rajasthani dance troupe. It was all male, + comic, tho’ rather long-winded by Western theatrical standards. Each scene took about 15 minutes, + all followed the same operatic pattern, with the characters exchanging sung dialogue for about 10 secs, followed by about 30 of dancing around the stage, the “women” flirting + thrusting their hips coquettishly, but all the characters revealing a finely developed sense of coarse comedy. There may have been more subtle stuff too, of course, but of that I wasn’t able to judge. The pattern would be repeated over + over, with only the dialogue altering, tho’ it wasn’t possible to see if there was any story as such which was being advanced. The whole thing was something of English pantomime, + something of Commedia dell’arte. I would have liked to have seen more, but it was not gripping, + Val was becoming uncomfortable + bored, so we left, had banana + custard at a small café, + went to bed.
Still good to see some live theatre; it appears I had not lost my liking for the same. Taking photos was somewhat frustrating, precisely because there was so much wonderful material, that we wanted to be able to do it justice.
