When I was asked to speak about Shakespeare at a gathering of school principals and English teachers, I was more than a little nervous.I borrowed and read books; I watched DVDs about his life; I pulled out notes from my Master's course on Shakespeare ... And I enjoyed myself thoroughly! Reading about Shakespeare again made me chuckle and wonder at the amount people have read and written about him. The interpretations people have come up with are amazing! From saying that he was (definitely) a moneylender to saying that he was a butcher's son who would make a speech while killing a calf, I read a range of stories, and that's why I decided to talk about just that - a few of the stories that make up the Shakespeare that we "know" today.After my talk, Mr Sridhar Balan spoke about the First Folio, a delightful session that drew the audience in and explored Shakespeare's journey … [Read more...]
Gnomeo and Juliet at Artsphere, Pune
The British Council Library and Artsphere Pune hosted a screening of the movie "Gnomeo and Juliet", and I was invited to talk about the movie, about Romeo and Juliet, and about Shakespeare. I was tremendously excited - I love working with the British Council; I was going to work in a new venue with a new audience; I was going to work with Shakespeare!I began my preparation by re-reading Romeo and Juliet. I have an edition of the complete works of William Shakespeare that used to belong to my grandfather. Within, I found this ...... and I read Romeo and Juliet with a smile.The movie was fun, but after an 81-minute long screening, the children were not really in the mood for anything else. Yet, when we began to talk about Shakespeare, many slowly grew excited. We spoke about the challenges players faced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the fact that … [Read more...]
Happy Birthday, Shakespeare!
An achievement I sometimes hide is that I won two medals for having topped a course on Shakespeare. I hide it because despite the medals, I can't quite say that I know much about Shakespeare. It was a course where we studied about Shakespeare without studying texts. The thing about Shakespeare is that he's such a grand and mysterious character that there are so many things we are unsure about. With his multiple signatures and the fact that he even changed his name to Shakeshaft once, we really don't know much about him. Maybe that's why I topped the course. Because writing about him uses imagination and knowledge in equal proportions.I received a letter from my university inviting me for the convocation. None of my friends received a letter. I thought that was normal, considering I was the only one who had to make my way from across the country.I went there, collected my orange robe … [Read more...]