This morning after much procrastinating, I dragged myself to Gyana Bharathi University to meet badal sircar. Had no idea what kind of interview it would be and horribly last minute research, but Mum would not hear of me not going. Met CGK and hung around because I was horribly early.
Badal Sircar, when he arrived, took me by surprise; he was so much more cheerful and smiley than he sounded like he would be, with all those 'no press' requests! No interview, just a huge hall and all of us standing up to ask questions. Geriatric crowd, one old guy stood up and said, "Sir, with reference to your play..." then looked around helplessly till someone prompted from the audience: "Evam Indrajit".. then he would continue, "Ah, yes! Evam Indrajit..."
Terrible! I was quite content sitting in a corner becos others were asking all my questions on form vs. content anyway... till CGK from the dias calls out, "Where is Hemangini? She had some questions.." Mortifying! Then I stood up, and asked and of course being 80 he couldn't hear, so I had to practically go and yell the question in his ear.
It was almost disconcerting to see how old he was, with a phlegm glass et al, but glad I went.
At night, stayed home... still unsure of whether Im going to Nagapattinam or not.
Viji came at night and regaled mum and me with stories of new year's gone by.
