Before embarking on my description of the day’s travails, I had forgotten to mention one more aspect of yesterday’s positive events. After rehearsal, Aparna, Yogi and I were sitting in the canteen area at SPA drinking tea and discussing various things, chiefly whether to go ahead with hiring the party venue around the corner; we would need to send them a deposit. Yogi then suggested using the Seminar Room instead, which is actually a very good idea. I had thought of it myself, but then had rejected the notion as something SPA would never wear, both because of its organisational difficulties, and because the college has always used outside venues, as it is rather wedded to spectacle and display.
It has a lot of advantages, allowing us to rehearse in the actual space, rather than go through the inevitable chaos and upheaval that transferring to a new space entails. It would save a lot of money, which could then be spent on the production – set, lights, maybe even on some costumes. And almost best of all, because it was Yogi’s idea, he would sanction the upheaval, be involved in the logistics. He is at his best when dealing with a crisis, and though this is not exactly that, it does require the same sort of input.
This morning, I had the second of my spoken English classes. It had the same very slow beginning, with people drifting in over abut twenty minutes, and the lesson itself was not nearly as interesting as the previous one had been. There was a massive reduction in numbers – I had complained to Aparna that there were far too many for a practical class, so maybe there had been some intervention, or maybe it was just that the students’ curiosity had been appeased. And with just a couple of exceptions, they were a different crowd. The first two through the door had excellent English; just about all the rest (a dozen or so) did not. Which made the plans I had had, reliant on a measure of competence (which many had shown yesterday) very difficult to execute. Ah well. I shall just have to see who (if anyone) turns up tomorrow.
Finally, the rehearsal. A member of staff had volunteered to play the role of the Pujari, the priest, our equivalent to Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. This was Indra, a very large, rather jolly man, who tends to lead the college in folk dance displays – he is very keen. His English is poor, but he is a performer. For this rehearsal, he was acting a couple of scenes with Romeo, and did very well. Afterwards, Aparna expressed some disquiet as to whether he would be able to be reliable (he had left the rehearsal a little early to attend a hospital appointment), but I felt it would now be difficult to replace him. Who with?, for one thing.
And then some depressing news, which was that the teacher who wanted to take Juliet away on a class trip had not given up, was intending to write to MD, Subhash, despite all of the college authorities turning down his proposal. Again, we shall see. Subhash is very largely on my side, but I don’t know what influence matey has. (I don’t know his name, am not interested in learning it.)
