Word Is Out

The turnout was overwhelming, it was jammed to the gills. But few seemed to mind the crush as they watched Aushim Ahluwalia's award winning first film, In Thin Air, a documentary on magicians, and swayed to the incredible music of Srikant Shriram and Carl Clemens. There were also a couple of other presentations plus freebie goodies, champagne courtesy Indage and a book of 10 excerpts by Indian authors from Crosswords.

Later, a short film from the director of Jalwa and Chaalbaaz, followed. Actually, Pankaj Parashar had to run his ad film twice that same evening, on the demand of latecomers.

But the presentation that took one's breath away that evening was from The Company Theatre. It also kicked of their idea of `drawing room' theatre. If you have the space and inclination, they will come and perform for you, right in your own living room! The Moliere comedy directed by Atul Kumar was amazingly done from costumes to performances to movements, to the painted backdrop. Kudos to them.

Even after all that high-energy stuff, the mike did not close. Adda regular Makarand Deshpande arrived with his tribe of musicians and went into a story-telling session, as only he can! Superbly. Written only that evening, for the occasion, the Adda seems to bring out the best in him! He also tried to read a couple of pages from his new play, but that was not such a good idea, unfortunately. Too much of a good thing?

(Word Is Out is .)

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