Indian Writing

“Two miles into the 1967 Boston Marathon, an official tried to eject me from the race simply because I was a woman. That event changed my life and, as a consequence, the lives of millions of women around the world.

The marathon was a man’s race in those days; women were considered too fragile to run it. But I had trained hard and was confident of my strength. Still, it took a body block from my boyfriend to knock the official off the course and allow me to complete the 26.1 miles, or 42.2 kilometers.

In 1967, few would have believed that marathon running would someday attract millions of women, become a glamour event in the Olympics and on the streets of major cities, help transform views of women’s physical ability and help redefine their economic roles in traditional cultures.”

It’s not perfect, not nearly, but it has the following high points: a glorious pizza-ordering scene; a too-long bus ride to Pune with the wannabe-singer from hell; much business with a plastic-wrapped scrapbook and a delightful briefcase; and a few good laughs about the taxman who cometh. These are what make this short, casually made film worth your Saturday afternoon.

Philip Glass’s opera about the early life of Gandhi is being staged at the Coliseum in London. More here and here and here. Tim Ashley writes in the Guardian:

Phelim McDermott’s staging, undertaken in collaboration with the theatre company Improbable, is also a thing of wonder. The gods of the Hindu pantheon rub shoulders with ordinary humanity. Hope is born from deprivation as sheets of corrugated iron and vast quantities of newsprint are transformed into the symbols of a new order. The ending is very stark: Gandhi and King are suddenly seen against a vista of threatening clouds, an intimation of the impending assassination of both by the forces they opposed. Above all, however, the whole thing serves as a monumental affirmation of human dignity at a time when many have begun to question its very existence - and for that, we must be infinitely grateful.