Its habba time !

Bengaluru habba is back and yes ! we are making the most of it.
The inaugural ceremony was good with a classical Drupad Gayan performance by the Gundecha brothers,followed by a fultoo Bollwood Shankar Ehsaan Loy performance.
Then we watched a Kannada play on Monday. [Maybe i didnt get the funny dialogs right ,bcoz Guru was having a blast ]
We attended an Oddisi and bharatnatyam dance performance on Tuesday and i was mesmerized by the Oddisi dancers from Nrityagrama [Bijoyni and Surupa Sen].
Tommorrow there's a play "Hamlet" by Evam which i think i have watched before,but i will ,again ,coz I like the troupe .
Good night!

A follow up by Guru...
Events that we watched in this year's Habba:
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1. Umakant & Ramakant Gundecha (Gundecha Brothers) - Classical Hindustani - Dhrupad Music
2. Shankar Ehsaan Loy - Bollywood music
3. Samsaradalli Sa Ni Da Pa by Spandana, Sagara (Shivamogga) - Kannada Theatre
4. Nrityagram (Bijayini Satpathy & Surupa Sen) - Classical Dance (Odissi)
5. Dr. Padma Subrahmaniam - Classical Dance (Bharata Nrityam)
6. Rathnan Parpancha by Kriyative Theatre - Kannada Theatre
7. Hamlet - The Original Spoof by EVAM (Chennai) - English Theatre
8. Adaddella Olithe…? by Kriyative Theatre - Kannada Theatre (we missed it but parents watched it)
9. Avaantara by Samashti - Kannada Theatre
10. Dr. Suma Sudhindra, Annor Anantha Krishna Sharma & Laya Taranga - Percussion Music Ensemble
11. Anoushka Shankar - Anoushka Shankar Project
12. Yakshagana - Folk Dance Drama of Karnataka
13. Ajmeri Brothers - Sufi Music Ensemble
14. Mrigya - Indian Band in the Global Village
15. Guru Kiran - Kannada Film Industry Music Director

Some more info on the Kannada plays that we watched

"Spandana" team from Sagara performed the following play at Seva Sadan

Samsaradalli Sa Ni Dha Pa: -- njoyable
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The play was very nice, humorous and the artist who played the role of a thief was very good.

This play is an adaptation of "The Virtuous Burglar" written by Dario Fo from Italy. The story is about a typical relationship farce in which the three married couples are paired in almost every possible permutation during the course of the play, with the highest possible degree of misunderstanding between them. But the confusion was depicted very convincingly by the actors with some very nice comedy touches in the performances, and there was genuine amusement at each twist and turn in the story.

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"Kriyative Theatre" group performed the following plays at Ranga Shankara.

1. "Rathnan Parpancha ": -- A laugh riot
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"Rathnan Parpanacha" play was a tribute to GP Rajaratnam (1908-1979) who has penned over 150 books including short stories, books on drama, children literature, poems, biographies and classical Kannada literature. The first half of the play focused on his life and showcased few important moments in his life in a humorous manner which
included:
(a) his intelligence during school days which frustrated the english grammer teacher (b) his struggling days as a writer - he not only wrote the books but also used to sell them personally
(c) how the boring/intellectual/serious gadya-padya in 2nd-3rd standard school syllabus (when he became a teacher) forced him to think and write stories/poems that children can enjoy (c) sold his gold medal for publishing books
(d) how a drunk person influences him which lead him to make 'Yendakudka Ratna' a central character in his poems - 'Ratnana Padagalu'
(e) how his daughter's music teacher gets irritated when he instructs the teacher not to loose focus on lyrics (when he sings Sri Chamundeshwari as Sri Cha Mundeshwari :) he he he), etc...
The second half was based on one of his plays "Kambali Seve". It was hilarious, all the actors were superb and play was very well directed with nice support from music/lights team and not to forget the singer who sung the poems fantastically including my favourite "Bannada Tagadina Tuttoori" :)

2. Aadiddella Olithe: -- "Hilarious"
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The play revolves around the antics of a middle-aged couple, Bhageerathi and Kapanipathi, whose children are grown up and live in distant cities. As they squabble over petty domestic matters, they receive letters from their son and daughter. While the son has written to invite them over to Bombay for the coming Deepavali, their artist-daughter, who has married a Frenchman, announces her desire to bring her husband home. Bhageerathi sees the visit to Bombay as a long-awaited opportunity to exercise her power as the mother-in-law, while Kapineepathi wants to subject his French son-in-law through the torture he has experienced during his first Deepavali at the in-laws'
house. But both of them are in for surprises.

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I happened to see another play, "Avaantara" by "Samashti" group at Ranga Shankara. It was a very disappointing experience - dont want to add anything more than that :-)