Uff, the efforts I made along with my colleague, playwright Vijay Padaki, to create a university student-involved creative project around the topic over the past few years but, alas, we got zero interest from students. Maybe it was us. Maybe we did a poor job of pitching it.
I then pitched it as an America 250 article to Smithsonian Magazine and got no response.
Now this fascinating history is in a terrific New Yorker story by Ishaan Tharoor. As a writer, you win some, you lose some. I’m just glad to see more Americans made aware of India’s connection to the American Revolution.
If you or yours are near Willliamsburg, VA or Houston, TX, my friend, colleague and mentor Vijay Padaki is coming to the US again in October! He’ll be performing on 2 October (International Day of Non-Violence) at 3:30pm at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, and 11 October at 3:00pm at the Eternal Gandhi Museum Houston, excerpts from his play The Prophet and the Poet, based on the letters between Gandhi and Tagore. Both of these public presentations are free and open to the public.
For my friends in Delhi, my old friend and colleague, the amazing, highly accomplished, internationally renowned playwright Vijay Padaki will be speaking on 11 July on Writing in English for the Indian Stage. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed by his lifetime of words and wisdom.
I was honored this week to be asked to introduce dramatist and lifelong theatre practitioner Vijay Padaki when he was honored by a group of his former business students from the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore. They organized the event to recognize his recent Lifetime Achievement Award presented to him by ASSITEJ, a global network of children’s theatre practitioners, at their annual Congress which was held this year in Havana, Cuba.
Transcript of my spoken remarks:
A wise person once wrote, “A man often finds his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.” Put differently, life is full of surprises and unexplored paths inviting you in new directions.
Vijay Padaki
In 1979 while I was a 12-year-old growing up in southwestern Virginia, Vijay Padaki was teaching Organizational Behavior at IIM-B. Who would have thought that Vijay, in addition to his background in management and psychology, was also actively involved in running, and in continually growing, the Bangalore Little Theatre, which has now been going strong for more than 60 years. It is Bangalore’s oldest nonprofit theatre.
I have never met a wiser, more astute, more dedicated theatre artist than Vijay Padaki.Mine and Vijay’s paths first crossed in 2012 thanks to the power of the worldwide web, when he reached out to me about my playTesla’s Letters.
Why is this man making a hand-rabbit? Scroll down to find out.
If you missed my interview last night with the masterful Tina Brock of theIRC and would like to hear more about my mis/adventures in India, my work as a Fulbright Scholar and the nonfiction book I’m currently finishing, along with Tesla, ghosts, paan, religion, David Ives, and a few other surprises, you can catch it here on the IRC’s youtube channel:
