When someone asks you what your sun sign is (Capricorn) and then asks you what your moon sign is (Pisces) and then asks you what your rising sign is (I don’t know) and then tells you you are nothing like any of those signs – do they even believe in you?
Or do they believe in a fated version of you? A version you could be if only – if only you – did this and this and maybe that – you could be ‘somebody’.
So? Are we born unlucky? (not a Capricorn?) Are the stars misaligned for us?
Can we – quote – pull ourselves up by our bootstraps – end quote – and become who we were meant to be (a Capricorn!)
This play is not about astrology or astronomy but fate and chance and the rolling of the die. About my cultural confusion of expectations of locus of control. About my nemesis ‘time’ and endless research on oblong dice and ancient board games.
Oh and the thing – the thing that changed the world. What is it called? The thing! The event that occurred over centuries and countries. What’s the word for it? You know what I mean. There it is. Colonialism.
These are the chance/chaos encounters that led me to the creation of this play –
Roll one and two –
I hear the word ‘Inshallah’ on American tv
Uttered by then President hopeful Biden about Trump’s taxes.
I would hear this word often in India. Part of the cultural lexicon. “God Willing”. Loosely translated as “hopefully”, “it’s up to God and fate and chance” and my favorite “we’ll see”. Trump’s taxes – Time is immaterial here. It is an event that may or may not happen. But it has been promised fruitlessly. And by one word ‘Inshallah’, Biden conveys the entire world’s exasperation with Trump’s promises.
Roll three and one–
Enter the British Museum !for free!
See the world’s treasures for free. How did we acquire them? Ahem. We are committed to anti-racial and anti-discrimination and anti-bias and… and anti-thesis policies.
I see a vase that looks like my grandmother’s vase. Faded green with etchings across in gold. She got it from Sindh, India before the Partition. I read the placard, eyes narrowed, in size 6 font. The museum got it from Sindh, Pakistan, also before the Partition?
Roll six and five –
Re-discovery of the ancient Indian game Pachisi
Traveling across the world from the Mahabharata to Mattel (Sorry! Hasbro). The oblong/long die can be traced back to the Indus Valley. As people’s worldviews changed over time, so did the shape of the die.
I play Pachisi with my board game group of friends – we are all immigrants in New York and remark on the objective of the game – to reach ‘home’. I don’t win.
Board game geek’s review – “Compare Pachisi and Dog/Tock. They have the exact same basic concept – move your pieces around the board one time and get into the safe haven. But in all the groups I’ve played in, Dog/Tock has completely displaced all other Pachisi variants because with a few additional rules it has become a much more interesting game.”
Roll six and six – again –
Roll six and six – again –
Roll six and six – Forfeit turn.
What are the odds? Writer’s block imminent.
Miss three Thursdays –
And start writing on a Sunday evening 7:04 pm –
With a glass/bottle of a newly discovered taste. Golden liquid. The art of pretentiously ahem precariously sipping Amontillado. Preening as Poe. I struggle to shake off the ghosts of old men writers.
Roll two and four –
‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps’
I heard this once at a social convention of thinkers who were also doers. The social convention that society had deemed was conventional was to sit and do nothing but hear them speak. It could have been about theatre, it could have been about anything. I don’t remember.
I hear this again and again in the news – An ‘Americanism’ – ‘do unto yourself as I have done with my life’ – but – ‘we will never be fated to meet as I am unto a social class by myself’.
Roll five and five –
Bonus turn – roll one and six –
My flight is delayed for four hours
At the best possible airport for this to happen – Newark, New Jersey
The measure of man is the ability to stare down at loss of control.
A middle-aged man hurls his iPhone 7 at a flight attendant. Who stands her ground remarkably. Across the gate, someone with pink hair bangs their head on the glass pane. The rhythm matches the jets rolling down the runway.
A body is sprawled across three rows of seats. No one is sure whether it lives.
Two friends and lovers loudly sob. Their arms around each other. Heaving. Wracking wails that echo. And get lost in the crush of people.
Loud yells. Loud sighs. Loud tears. Loud complaining voices.
‘How could this happen? ‘How could this happen to us?’ ‘Why?’ ‘Why me?’
And me? I? I am taking mental notes. Mental pictures. Knowing all of this will make sense one day. In my play.
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Ambav ca. 1868
