The much-discussed monsoon season seems to have arrived. It rained in Goa on Friday night and Saturday morning, and then it rained for a little bit here in Mumbai last night as well. I'm sure there will be many downsides to the rains - flooding, traffic delays, afternoons huddled indoors, frizzy hair, whatever. But there is one upside - the heat! The rains seem to make such a difference in this bloody infernal heat that it almost makes it bearable. For this reason, I'm choosing to view monsoon season as a positive - if anything it will provide a reason for my clothes to be damp when I walk inside (or at least a reason less gross than how sweaty I am from spending 10 seconds outside).
In other news, my dating life here continues to progress. I went on date #2 last night with the guy from last week. I gave him free reign to plan the date, since I was out of town and know little about the options available in Bombay. He definitely exceeded my expectations on the planning front! We ended up going to see a play - Chinese Coffee. It's actually an American play - my good buddy Al Pacino made it into an independent film a few years back. I couldn't help but imagine Al Pacino and Jerry Orbach in the lead roles while I was watching the actors do their thing, although the two actors on the stage were impressive in their own right. One interesting element is that they took the American play and adapted it to be more relevant for India. There were a few pop culture references throughout the play that they changed to be India-specific. I'm not sure what the original references are, but they talked about Indian literature, Indian cities. They changed some of the names in the play to be Indian. They even changed some of the jokes to be in Hindi. They would switch to Hindi for a sarcastic punchline of some sort, and the entire audience would crack up...except for me. My date did graciously explain a couple of them to me, but I would have liked to understood the full nuance of the jokes without having to have them be explained to me. Maybe I'll rent the Al Pacino version :)
The play was held in the Prithvi Theater, which is the one that Ami and I had tried to go to a few weeks ago and had arrived late. I finally got to see a play in this theater - yay! The play itself was wonderful - I was particularly impressed with the quality of acting. The play was done as a single act - 75 minutes long with no intermission. It's just two actors on the stage the entire time without getting a break. They did a wonderful job of keeping the audience engrossed in what they were saying, showing variations in mood as the conversation between them drifted from happy to sad to funny to cruel. Apparently one of the actors is a pretty famous TV actor here in India (although I would have no idea what he's been in). The set was minimalistic, but it fit the mood of the play well. It was a small theater, intimate so that we all felt like we were part of the action. I loved it - will definitely be going back to see more shows at this theater. I was also impressed that my date seemed to enjoy the play as much as I did. I had been a little curious to see whether he actually enjoys the theater, or was taking me to a show to impress me and make himself seem cultured and worldly. I was happy to see that he enjoyed the show as much as I did. We've talked about going to other shows together while I'm here - we'll see how it plays out (pun not intentional). I'm talking to several other guys as well, so I'm trying to keep it all very casual. I can't break my promise to Mom, after all. I reallly want to make a monsoon-related dating joke about when it rains it pours, but I'll refrain. It would have been hilarious, though, trust me.
I'll make this a short post for now, since the Goa one was longer than usual. Too much blogging for one day.
In other news, my dating life here continues to progress. I went on date #2 last night with the guy from last week. I gave him free reign to plan the date, since I was out of town and know little about the options available in Bombay. He definitely exceeded my expectations on the planning front! We ended up going to see a play - Chinese Coffee. It's actually an American play - my good buddy Al Pacino made it into an independent film a few years back. I couldn't help but imagine Al Pacino and Jerry Orbach in the lead roles while I was watching the actors do their thing, although the two actors on the stage were impressive in their own right. One interesting element is that they took the American play and adapted it to be more relevant for India. There were a few pop culture references throughout the play that they changed to be India-specific. I'm not sure what the original references are, but they talked about Indian literature, Indian cities. They changed some of the names in the play to be Indian. They even changed some of the jokes to be in Hindi. They would switch to Hindi for a sarcastic punchline of some sort, and the entire audience would crack up...except for me. My date did graciously explain a couple of them to me, but I would have liked to understood the full nuance of the jokes without having to have them be explained to me. Maybe I'll rent the Al Pacino version :)
The play was held in the Prithvi Theater, which is the one that Ami and I had tried to go to a few weeks ago and had arrived late. I finally got to see a play in this theater - yay! The play itself was wonderful - I was particularly impressed with the quality of acting. The play was done as a single act - 75 minutes long with no intermission. It's just two actors on the stage the entire time without getting a break. They did a wonderful job of keeping the audience engrossed in what they were saying, showing variations in mood as the conversation between them drifted from happy to sad to funny to cruel. Apparently one of the actors is a pretty famous TV actor here in India (although I would have no idea what he's been in). The set was minimalistic, but it fit the mood of the play well. It was a small theater, intimate so that we all felt like we were part of the action. I loved it - will definitely be going back to see more shows at this theater. I was also impressed that my date seemed to enjoy the play as much as I did. I had been a little curious to see whether he actually enjoys the theater, or was taking me to a show to impress me and make himself seem cultured and worldly. I was happy to see that he enjoyed the show as much as I did. We've talked about going to other shows together while I'm here - we'll see how it plays out (pun not intentional). I'm talking to several other guys as well, so I'm trying to keep it all very casual. I can't break my promise to Mom, after all. I reallly want to make a monsoon-related dating joke about when it rains it pours, but I'll refrain. It would have been hilarious, though, trust me.
I'll make this a short post for now, since the Goa one was longer than usual. Too much blogging for one day.
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