I was beginning my journey to Lucknow today, but the plane to Kathmandu, stage one of my journey, was not till the afternoon, so still time to rehearse in the morning. The idea was that this would be some sort of dress rehearsal, performing in full costume; we have to assume there will be no opportunity to do so there. But, I suppose inevitably, this did not happen. People were late, of course, with various reasons; I do not know the difficulties they face, so cannot judge too harshly. And most of the costumes were not there. Ho hum.
Fortunately, we did have the outfit that Chitra changes into and out of, so we could, vitally, practise the transformations. Just as well, when Jigsaya discovered the skirt she was attempting to wrap around Apekshiya was upside-down. But that’s what rehearsals are for, to make mistakes and correct them. I was very pleased it had happened.
But eventually, I decided I had done all I could, wished them sayonara, and shot off to buy last minute shopping; Pawan still needed a fancy staff, so I bought a cheap mop, to unscrew the handle and hand that over for decorating. Incidentally, on my way there, a shopkeeper called out to me – “I saw your video!”, a reference to the introduction I had recorded, which had been posted on the school’s Facebook page; I am told it has 72000 views (maybe more by now; I have no way of knowing!)
Put everything away in our room so it could still be used for teaching, changed, and then a taxi out to the airport (same guy, same taxi – are there any others?) We relied on his timing, even though my preference is always to leave extra time. But he was right, we were wrong; the plane was delayed by an hour. But an entirely unremarkable trip, and we were met at the airport by Monzu, Yogi’s wife, and taken back to their apartment in Kathmandu. Hugely busy, traffic-wise – some things have changed very much for the worse since we were last here.
The apartment is small by English standards, but very comfortable, and housed in the top floor of a very attractive building. We were introduced to Sara, their dog, who barked and growled a lot on our first arrival, but once the introduction was made, she was very friendly, and she and I got on very well. Chatted a lot with Toyasha, their seventeen-year-old daughter, lovely and with flawless English, had a lovely meal, and then bed.
We were sleeping in their younger daughter’s, Dibyata’s, bedroom, which has a slightly larger than single-sixed bed. They offered to bring up another mattress, but we insisted we would be fine, that we were used to squeezing up together. Well, we used to be. In the event, this proved over-optimistic, and I didn’t sleep at all, especially with my mind racing and refusing to stop. I was flying the next day on my own, never something I am relaxed about. Plus thoughts of the performances to come.
Val has a technique that she uses to get to sleep, counting backwards from 500, claims it is virtually foolproof. Well I must have started the damn thing about 500 times, never got below 430 or so. In the end, I got up, went into the living-room, and read.
