Making a Marriage Part 2 (India, Part 4)

This post is part of a month long trip I just took to India. If you’d like to start from the beginning, please click here.

Day of the show, still the site is in chaos. No way it will be done by tonight. We arrive early for more rehearsal, costume fitting and makeup.

We train Russian Bar wearing half a Mac store on our faces. It feels like we’re going to drip a rainbow on the stage, sweating as we are, training in the sun, but incredibly the makeup holds. Still nearly 10 hours until show, hope we don’t look too cracked and busted come showtime.

There is a man here apparently hired exclusively to pray for good weather the entire week. It’s the dry season, but why risk it? Apparently they brought in a pro, the weather stays seasonally balmy.

Christine, the flyer of the other Russian Bar trio, is seriously sick. She doesn’t come in for training, and a doctor is sent to her hotel room to pump her full of drugs. This is what we have all been fearing, Dehli Belly on show day. When she does arrive on site she looks terrible. She is weak and dizzy, and there are questions of whether she’ll be well enough to do the show come nighttime. The local dancers come together to do a Reiki healing session for her, and we all cross our fingers.

Other excitement during the day: while we rehearse onstage the workers next to us haul a massive decorative panel up by ropes and bamboo push-poles. Suddenly, shouts ring out and we are ushered offstage. The massive panel has broken in half, the metal folding in the middle. Cowabunga. They bring it down safely and work continues.

We finish rehearsals and have nothing to do but wait around while they finish decorating. Yves and I do a lap every hour or so, and the place improves by leaps and bounds with every tour.

We see Garip practicing his paintings and he invites us to join him. It’s an ancient Turkish art called Ebru, adding paint to a large tray of water and manipulating it to create images and effects that can then be transferred to paper. It’s beautiful and meditative, and he is a friendly and inviting teacher. Check out his site here.

Final preparations are underway, suddenly the place looks like something. 300 chefs, 150 bartenders, waiters and sous-chefs all storm the place to set up their booths. Finishing touches are put on the decorative trees, and lights are added. They are still peeling scotch tape off of mirrors and rolling scaffolding out the back as the guests come in in the front, the paint is wet on the walls but it is done. Unreal.

Unfortunately we can’t show pictures of the event once guests arrived as per the family’s request, needless to say it was spectacular. The show went off swimmingly, Christine managed to do the act despite feeling horrible (having not missed a show in 14 years she wasn’t about to break her streak now), and we all celebrated backstage, marveled at each other’s costumes and the general craziness of the previous week. What a spectacular team and fantastic event, many thanks to everyone involved!

We spend the rest of the night celebrating and enjoying the comfortable living quarters, knowing the next day we will set off into a very different India on our own, the real adventure awaits…