Safari Suit and the Drama

There's this notion of dressing style called Safari Suit. I am sure there's a reason why the suit is called "Safari" and I don't intend to dig it up. But I was surprised, there actually was a website called http://www.safarisuit.com/

Whatever may be it's origin or the story behind this suit, I think this form of attire is.. what's the word I am looking for here.. yeah... Obnoxious. It's creepy actually. Why would you want to do it to yourself? That is a fair question to ask, I think.

So last visit to Nagpur I took my wife to watch this Marathi drama at Vasantrao Deshpande Hall. This was part of my whole, "impress-Nagpur-on-her" syndrome. Basically Nagpur has the "culture" thing going too; something I somehow thought was important to prove (ok, you have to hold that look back.., I have my reasons.)

I booked the tickets for the show in advance. (Nobody does that in Nagpur it seems. I think the idea is to just show up. "Advance booking" is for dorks) We came to the hall around 12:50pm as the drama was to start at 1:00 pm. You'd think that if 1:00 pm is printed on the ticket, the show would start at 1:00, right? Fair assumption? Only it din't. Actually it did not start even at 1:30. Neither at 1:45. It started at 2:00 pm.

But that's not the worst part. There were people still coming inside the auditorium till 2:30pm; a good one and a half hour after the official start time. It's like they couldn't care less.

And every time someone entered that dark auditorium, a big stream of light would enter the hall via the open door, breaking the whole momentum of the show. The show never got traction coz of that. (Like it would have mattered)

By 2:30 I had already lost interest in the drama. I was observing my watch and people alternatively. I was not even freaking out. This all made no sense. So I had given up on anything remotely rational or reasonable. The people in general looked fine with all this. So I was ok too. I had turned native.

The drama was a comedy one. So you'd expect some moments of comic relief. Only both me and my wife felt out of place. It's not like we were not getting the humor. But it was just lame. Plain lame. Prashant Damle was making faces and would break into random act of song and dance once in a while too. Not sure what he had in mind.

Somehow all this made a lot of sense to the 'gentleman' sitting behind us. He totally "got it". He was totally digging it. Laughing out loudly and showing his deep admiration for Mr Damle's acting. But what bothered me more was, there was this one word he kept repeating ad nauseum.. "Class... Class... Class" even while he himself erupted into multiple uncontrollable LOLs.

I am sure he meant, it was a class act, but tiger..easy! Like this was some classic Shakespearean Comedy of Errors. He just could not gather himself. He was putting himself out there. Loudly sure, but it was not clear why. And yes he was wearing a "Safari Suit".

Man that combination. A loud man, a loud attire and the word "Class".

I was waiting desperately for the interval, although it wouldn't have mattered to anyone if I had just walked right through the exit door and left. But the samosa guys wouldn't be there. So I waited for that intermission ring and boy! did I run to the stalls to get those awesome tiny samosas.

For me, those samosa making dark circular oily maps on the white paper plate, more than made up for everything else. I'd say go to those shows for the samosas. It's easy to endure anything after that.

..

Post Script : Nagpur Samosa is the best snack ever. Period.