Winter and Delhi

It's cold. Dhnoya comes out of your mouth even during the day, inside the house.

I'm going to the NSD Theatre Festival. I couldn't procure tickets for the most part: missing out on The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (dir: Naseeruddin Shah), Rajnaitik Hatya (dir: Saonli Mitra), Kamdev Ka Apna Basant Ritu Ka Sapna (an adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream dir: Habib Tanvir), Hamlet the Clown Prince (dir: Rajat Kapoor), Broken Images (solo performance by Shabana Azmi; script: Girish Karnad) and I also missed an IPTA performance (in spite of having a pass) because I was attending the NSD production of Jaat Hi Puchho Sadhu Ki (script: Vijay Tendulkar) about the same time. Anyway, chhite-phnota is good enough for me. :)
Jaat Hi Puchho... was very good: entertaining, funny, poignant, great use of sets and great acting. But, possibly because it was an NSD production, youngsters in the hall was shouting, clapping and cheering so much (after every line of dialogue, almost) that you often missed out on the dialogues. It was like people cheering (by clapping and whistling and shouting 'guru cholbe' etc.) after a happy ending (end of Les Choristes) at the KFF 2005.
I have a play to go to today: Odysseus Chaoticus by an Israeli company in 'gibberish' not Hebrew. Wish I had a better camera: that is one that can take better photos (or take photos at any rate) in the dark. :(

Cancelling Agra plans for the weekend. The train will inevitably be delayed (possibly by 5 hours) due to the fog. So, no thank you.

I miss the Novel and Modernity blog muchly sometimes. I think I have most of the posts printed out somewhere. I also miss winter sunshine. Funny how we talk lovingly of winter sunshine: England has none of it (nor does Dilli): so it must be a native metaphor, rooted in our actual experience as opposed to being an imitation of foreign cliches. Imagine someone in the city(or even here, in Dilli) borrowing a line from Bill the bard and describing their gf/bf as 'a summer's day'?

Haven't finished Even Cowgirls Get the Blues yet. But what a novel! It's choc-a-bloc with pithy, ironic, inventive, crafty, delightful lines and passages. Some instances:

"It was there that she once shot up one half of an old pair of sneakers. "Self defence" she pleaded, when her parents complained. "It was a outlaw tennis shoe. Billy the Ked".

Like many italic sentences, this one has Mafia connections.
This sentence maybe pregnant, it missed its period
This sentence ran off with an adverb clause.
This sentence suffered a split infinitive--and survived."

I should work now.