People

Before I begin my rant for today, I have a request to all our readers. It is extremely demoralizing to check out the blog everyday and see that noone, save a few dedicated readers have bothered to leave comments. The humble request would be "Please leave comments, suggesting how we can improve ourselves." We both are painfully aware of the fact that somewhow we just can't seem to be catering to the audience, and are equally painfully aware about the fact that we are unaware as to just how exactly can that be done. Feedback is greatly appreciated for the simple fact that it will help us keep you better entertained, which is Random Tandem's basic premise. So help us help you. Even negative feedback, such as "Tell K to rant or write in normal language," or "Tell V that he really isn't that funny", while extremely damaging to our respective egos, will be appreciated. And now, onwards.

People always do end up surprising me. You think you know somebody, and then they always end up doing something that will completely surprise you. Sometimes positively, but predominantly it is an unpleasant surprise. Let us take an example:

Both the authors of this blog know a ridiculous excuse for an actor who tried to pass himself off as a director with absolutely no success. But he was tolerated by all for the simple fact that nobody wanted to stoop to a level well beneath them. And so it continued, the endless and pointless rehearsals, with all the actors reaching new heights of frustration and learning that their frustration threshold is indeed quite high. Unfortunately, with every growing day, our inept and grossly inadequate "DIRECTOR" grew more and more secure in his supposedly knowledge that he was indeed our fearless leader, and hence could take as many liberties as he wanted with us. We stayed silent. As our silence grew, so did his delusions of grandeur. And so it went on and on and on, with the end result being a cast who personally was willing to send him off to a firing squad, just to be rid of him. Much convincing, and the love of the script kept us together. We all proved to be excellent actors, for not only did we act out our parts with brilliance, but we also managed to keep the director ignorant of our feelings. I am extremely confident that he knew nothing about how much we hated him until recently. This man proved to be one of the most short-sighted idiots I have ever encountered. Sometimes, people are seduced by the glamour of a certain profession, and go in with the stars in their eyes, and no sane thoughts in their brains. As was the case with this blithering nincompoop. This dark-haired, flat-chested male(?) equivalent of a blonde simply saw himself taking the credit for everyone else's efforts, and nothing before that, or beyond that. The funds were lacking, but the actors weren't informed. The costumes weren't ready but the actors still weren't informed. Nothing was done, absolutely nothing was done...and YET, the actors were not informed. The actors offered to help share his burden, but in order to cover up his tracks, he declined initially, and then blamed the same people who offered to help later. A champion in passing the buck, this mook looked to make as many excuses as possible just to save his damn skin. And so the charade continued, as the excreta kept piling on and on and on.

The actors, a by now disgruntled bunch, with one exception (Mr. Passion For Theatre is on his own. He gets no sympathy from anyone) kept valiantly soldiering on, although. like the rats sensing a wreck, they too wanted to desert the ship. Yet, forgetting all else, devoted to the script and the rest of the cast, they held on, and tried to salvage what was left of the situation. Sad;y, it was a fight they just would not be able to win.

The matter reached a head on the day of the show. The director probably had been praying for an excuse all the previous week to ensure that the show would NOT go on, and the Gods were smiling on him. The law-enforcers also had something to do with it, but the raids gave the inept idiot a perfectly good excuse and citing the safety of the women, the play was cancelled.

The actors, now fuming, met and almost unanimously (no prizes for guessing the sole dissident) decided that they had had it, and that this man was toast. Further fuel was added to this already simmering fire by the revelation that the venue where we were supposed to be performing in less than three hours wasn't even booked. And the inferno completely broke out when the shameless sissy showed up near our meeting place, looking as if all was right with the world. Everyone unanimously quit.

Since then, this excuse for a man has tried a combination of apologies to passing the buck to slandering and blaming innocent bystanders, but his game has been busted. Each and every member of the cast is dying to get his/her hands on this numbskull and the heavens will shudder theday that happens. We all do our parts at warning the general public against even so much as thinking of associating themselves with this guy, and this is my oh-so-humble comtribution.

So, if a guy called Karthik Ram ever calls you and asks you if you are interested in working with him, decline...and if you can, throw in a few select abuses as well.

You will be doing the world a very big favor. Thanking you very much. Cheers and good notions.

V