Friday’s trip to the American Corner had elicited an invitation to attend a poetry meeting today, and I had decided to attend. It was not as though I had anything much else to occupy my time, and it was an opportunity, I thought to meet some other people. When told it began at eleven, I had joked about whether this meant Nepali time, but had been assured that no, it would start at eleven sharp, Accordingly, I went first to Flatland Café foe some breakfast, as it was on my way, and arrived there a little early… to find the door firmly locked.
Some people did arrive at five to eleven to open up, and I went in. The room had been tidied and made ready for the performance, with the guy who had invited me and two young women busying themselves with decorations, mikes, etc. (Mikes! For a room as big as my kitchen.)
I chatted pleasantly with the guy, and was offered tea and biscuits, but otherwise I was left alone, and sat and read the paper on my phone. For quite a while.
We began at 12.30! It was, apparently, to be some sort of poetry competition, with a succession of school students reading out their own poems. There were three judges, who turned up eventually; presumably we had had to wait for them before we could start, though actually it also took quite a long time for the competitors and their supporters to arrive in any case. But it also soon became apparent that the entire event was to be in Nepali; not one word of English was spoken throughout (though I had been told it would be a mixture of Nepali and English.) Not was there any acknowledgment of my presence in any way. Not that I expected or wanted any special treatment – I have had quite enough of that sort of thing – but “hello” would have been nice.
The poems were read out, with varying degrees of confidence. Difficult to tell, of course, but they seemed to be about Dhangadhi, and used a good deal of repetition, as some sort of rhetorical device. Each one seemed to take rather longer than their written form suggested – they all had to hand in their poems to the judges after they finished. And, of course, they were all too loud.
I think things might have been coming to a close anyway, but eventually I decided to make my exit; I had no intention of sitting through the judges’ comments – in Nepali. I had seen, and heard, enough. It had not been entirely without interest. As with the trip to the cinema, there was a certain cultural interest in the proceedings, even if I didn’t understand a word. But why on earth had I been invited to attend? Especially when he knew I had no Nepali. I can only imagine it was some misguided sense of courtesy.
The day got no better, when I received a message from Richa (Juliet), saying she would not be able to attend today’s rehearsal. Apparently she had to go to hospital in order to have an eye infection looked at; it was the reason she had missed Thursday’s rehearsal. And yet she had come to the rehearsal on Friday, even though she had not been needed, and had been able to come to the party too.
As it turned out, I was able to salvage something of the day. On Saturday, I had managed to recruit a young man, Pawan, to play the role of Tybalt, and so took the opportunity to run through a couple of his scenes, with Capulet and the Montague gang leader; it meant he had a chance to build up his confidence in relative quiet. Which he did need, for he has never done anything of the kind, so is being rather thrown in at the deep end. But even in this short time, he improved remarkably, and will, I think, be very good.
So not a total disaster of a day then. Only mostly.
