Backstage

Very few of you know about this, but I was a part of theater and dramas last year, and my role in them was that of a production manager. How I landed there is not much of a story to tell; I showed interest in the vacancy of this post, and one of my close friends held my hand through that thought of mine. Again, not many of you might know what actually theater is; I was one of you. Ah! As I write this, with a great smile on my face, it is a magical place to be. The idea of expressing emotions and telling a story by amalgamating various characters, music, lights, costumes, a set, and merely the spirit of it fascinates me SO MUCH! It still does!

When I watched my first theater play around a year ago, I was quite generically associated with it. I watched it, I felt a lot of emotions, and I took that story home with me, within me.

But this time, when I was a part of the whole playmaking process, I felt I had grown a lot of it within me. Being so close to such an intricate form of art that literally plays with human subjects all over, has so deeply affected me all along.

Now I might sound a bit boastful, but I’ll take pride in it as I say that I felt like a mother to all these three dramas I’ve been a part of as a production manager. So yeah, basically, me and my team did 3 plays in total, of which the first one was Qaid-e-Hayat by Surendra Verma and the other two were shows of a self-written play named Inquilab. All along these 2-3 months while I was a part of them, I woke up in the morning, thought of the things that my baby, as in my drama, needed each day, and did all of them to take care of it. All the characters in these plays were my friends, with whom I will always cherish that feeling of shared love for the art form and for the art piece we were creating together.

I learned so many things about the play-making process, about people, about the market, and—I might overstate this—about life too! It has literally changed me as a person, and at the same time, it has equally helped me to know more and more about myself.

The amount of effort that me and my team have put into this whole process of presenting a story in front of people, on the stage, was impeccable. We were all about it, and only it! Morning to night, and sometimes in the dreams too!

After weeks of reading artists and writers, gabbles, run-throughs, set designing, costume trials, multiple conversations over tea breaks, collective power naps, and personal bonding sessions, the show day comes!

The day we present our whole piece of heart in front of the audience. The environment on that day, behind the stage, is crazy! You wake up anxious, you do the end-moment fixations, you pray all day long, you and your team hold hands before going on stage, close your eyes and meditate, and just soak all of it up inside you. Months of practice flash in front of your eyes, and you just open your eyes with a sigh and go up on stage as if you have entered the realm of the unknown while being deeply sewn to that very place at heart!

The show happens, people applaud, and the way things go on stage reflects back the very next moment in the backstage area. I remember sitting disappointed in myself after the first one and sobbing out of happiness after the second play.

I love how my life has led me to this beautiful world that makes me feel so real about myself and the things I do in it! Being a person who feels so much and so deeply about everything, all of it came to me as a blessing.

I would state clearly here that I am so in love with the people around me in this, I am so in love with the whole process of it, I am so in love with myself when I do this, and I am so in love with the people who cherish this!

I think I feel too much, but who cares about what I think? Thinking obviously never helps when it comes to feeling something to the very core of it.

I still find it so hard to articulate what I actually feel about theater and my experiences with it, but I just want you guys to know that it is a whole other world, full of magic and love! Says me, the biggest fan of love!

So next time whenever you see a poster of a drama being presented somewhere where you can reach and watch, please please please go! Some beings on this planet are just working so hard for one of those days where they can tell you a story with whatever they have in themselves; even the tea provider amongst the crew wants to say something to you via this art form! This experience will never disappoint you; you will always take something from it, sometimes more than you can imagine!

Oh, how I love writing about things and how I hate not being able to write everything about them! See you in some theater next time :)

© Kashish Saxena