EXPERIENCE
When the doors shut you out…
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Being a theatre buff can be tough on your nerves in a fast-developing metro. K.S. DAKSHINA MURTHY
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Photo: K. Murali Kumar
Dare to brave that for theatre? A typical rush hour scene in Bangalore.
The venue: Ranga Shankara, Bangalore The Time: Approx 7.30 pm. The play: Exit The King
You are tense. You wonder how you managed it, but you have. Your car reaches Bangalore’s most sought-after theatre as the third and final bell is about to go off. Since you are inside the car, you can’t hear the ring. Your friend and a 12
-year-old step out. The security guard peers in through the window and asks you to park it in the field across the theatre. You do as told. And walk back a couple of minutes later.
No way in
What do you see? The gates are sealed shut, and in a bored monotone the security guard bars you from entering. You wish you were Ali Baba and could utter “Open Sesame”. Your BP rises to dangerous levels and you wish there was a rock around to fling it at the glass façade. Or better still, someone to provoke you so there can be a pressure-lowering fisticuff. Unfortunately, you have been conditioned to do neither. You stand and keep swallowing in disbelief. You wonder why the security asked you to park the car in the field when he knew you would be late if you did so. Instead, you could have stationed the car on the road in front of the gates and got in.
Not good enough
You request a theatre official to be considerate. “After all, just a few seconds late”. You see the official shake his head left to right, right to left. “Sorry, we can’t do anything.” You remember the time you started from home. 5.45 p.m. Picking up the friend and leaving for the theatre. 5.57 p.m. So that leaves all of 93 minutes to travel 20 km east to south, from C.V. Raman Nagar to Ranga Shankara in J.P. Nagar. Should be good enough, you think.
You want to reach there by 7.30 p.m. not because you know the gates will be shut but because you don’t want to miss the beginning. And, you love the few minutes in the theatre before the start of any play — the mood, the rustle of freshly-laundered and ironed clothes, the whiff of perfume-laced smells, the buzz of conversations in undertones and the expectancy of what is to follow in front of you on stage. No way do you want to miss any of that. As you turn into the normally traffic-free Koramangala Ring Road from the busy Airport Road, the sight shocks you out of the pleasant conversation you have been having with your friend. Cars, autorickshaws and two-wheelers pack the broad road. And worse, they crawl, stop and again move in fits and starts. What should have normally taken five minutes to cross the stretch takes 40 minutes.
You look at the car’s clock on the dashboard hoping time will stand still. No, nothing doing. Eventually, you pass through and the spirits rise. The traffic beyond is a piece of cake, or so you think. Finally, the clock shows 7.20 and you are in the vicinity of the theatre. You exult, “We made it…” But, wait a minute. Where is the theatre? It seems to have disappeared. Oh, hell…you realise you took the wrong turning. And worse, you are stuck in another gridlock at a signal-less junction. Your car may be large, but your anxiety to get to the theatre on time somehow makes you cross the hurdle. You stop, enquire and proceed as told. Yes, the theatre has finally arrived.
Epiphanic moment
But then…the Ranga Shankara management feels otherwise. You must suffer. You deserve to be shut out even if you are only a few seconds later than the third bell. “Everyone knows our rules,” they say. You feel epiphanic in the midst of your disappointment: so this is what injustice feels like. All those who get shut out routinely on the basis of caste, religion or skin colour. You think: Is this another face of fascism, in the garb of punctuality?
But you are not sure, as you don’t want to be inconsiderate. After all, Ranga Shankara has brought about a renaissance in Bangalore’s theatre scene. But what the hell? Does reputation allow you to be intolerant, inhuman, and throw out someone who braved, struggled, crawled and surmounted Bangalore’s evening traffic and made it to the play, albeit a few seconds late? You skipped work too. You are among the minuscule few in a city of eight million who would go through all that trouble just to see a play. But that brings you no credit.
Oh well...
Oh, and what about your friend? She was lucky. The organisers, promising to guide you in, ushered her inside just before the theatre shut its doors. You wait, hoping someone will allow you in. Several tense minutes pass by. No luck. You step out of the theatre. But you don’t give up. You hold the hand of the 12-year-old, walk two blocks up and down to calm down and drive away to a multiplex to watch “The Pursuit of Happyness”.
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