Lost and Found

“What time should we start da, to reach the theater on time?”

“The show starts at 8.00p.m, it seems, the opening sequence of Lion King is a must see”

“Dei, We are fifteen minutes behind schedule, and just one hour dhaan irukku, can we make it?”

We got on to and I hear “Who has the tickets? Did you take the printout with you?” Absolute silence followed.

Back to square one, and the tickets were not to be found anywhere in the house too.

On to once again, this time, with the tickets. We took a printout from the nearby office building of our friend TVK.

“Its Forty five to start, how many minutes of the show will we miss?”

“Can’t say, depends on how kind the Holland tunnel and the city traffic is, but we may miss fifteen minutes”

After risking at least 50 speeding violation tickets, and completing my maiden drive through the infamous NYC traffic, we reached a parking lot near the Broadway theater at 7.57p.m. I don't want to start on the merciless NYC traffic, Its like everyone are behind schedule 24/7.

We asked the parking-lot guy to show us directions to the theater. I was hoping and praying to see a button on the elevator that will take us to the theater entrance.

Unfortunately, it was 4 blocks away from the parking lot. With her high healed shoes my sister could not run for more than a block. 3 out of 5 took a cab, while I ran 4 blocks with my cousin to the entrance. Damn the formal dressing for this occasion. 8.01p.m, the lights were still on and the curtains were drawn. We took our seats at the balcony and the lights went out, the curtains rose.

It was a wonderful opening with a pleasant song, but I couldn’t understand one word of it. “Che! Ivvlo naal indha voorla irudhum onnum puriyalaye”, and my sister Ramya, corrected, “Illa da, it’s a tribal song of Lion King (dom), so its only good that we don’t understand it”

We failed to see the faces of the performers; no, I am not writing about the distance from the stage or an eyesight problem, we only saw the faces of the characters. The elephants, the giraffes all looked natural (‘natural’ = ‘animated’, in this case). So many minute details were taken care off meticulously. It took at least one hour for me, to believe that the sound track was not recorded in a studio, but was orchestrated right below the stage. They even pulled off feats like Mufasa falling off a cliff, in slow motion, Simbha and Nala getting air borne during a duet sequence. I never knew people cared so much for perfection in a stage play. It was nothing short of a magic show when they simulated water falls and even drying up of the lakes when the evil uncle (what is his name?) takes over the kingdom after Mufasa’s death.

During the 15-minute break, I realized that a balcony ticket is not the most preferred in stage performances and all along I was wondering “how did Ramya manage to get ‘balcony’ tickets at the last minute?”

I exited the show with a sense of achievement. Just when I was thinking that the $80 [I haven’t yet paid for the tickets] was worth all of it, Ramya goes “Guys, it's my treat!”

On our way back, Ramya gets back to her storybook, only to find that the original ticket printout is her bookmark!