Budday & Lion King

‘Birthday’ is kind of a difficult word to say. No wonder most people (especially back home) wish each other' ‘happy bird-day!’ or ‘birth-aye’ or sadda punjabi ‘ happi budday’. And since Americans omit most syllables anyways, I bet they never bother with mouthing out the whole word  either. So last week was Abhi’s budday. I baked a cake (yep, right from scratch!) for the event—and since I don’t  bake much, I sure was a nervous wreck until it emerged all puffed up from the oven. In retrospect it was quite a fun activity, especially the part where I got to pour hot boiling frosting over the cake and watch it drizzle down the sides.There is of no denying that birthdays are best when you are a kid. I remember planning for days on end what I would wear to school on my birthday, the candies I would take to distribute in class, and spend hours decorating even the basket that would hold the sweets. Of course, now birthdays are just a pinching  reminder of how awfully soon we are getting old.

Abhi’s Budday timed perfectly with a plan to go see the Lion King Broadway musical playing at the Boston Opera House. Even for the uninitiated, its hard not to recognize the iconic opening lyrics of the Circle of Life “Nants ingonyama bagithi baba…..” (which I had to look up online cause it doesn’t sound like this at all when they shout it out). By the way it means, “Here comes a lion, Father”. Before I talk about the musical though, the spectacular building that hosted it deserves a comment—as I am told, the present-day Boston Opera House, was originally built as a movie theatre and also showcased some live vaudeville. Extensively renovated in the 1980’s, the theatre is built in the French & Italian Baroque style –which essentially implies a highly ornate & opulent style of building. The Opera House is just that—gilded marble columns, rich ornamentation and red wall fabric add the right sense of drama & history. The play itself was visually stunning and artistically innovative. Interpreting an entire jungle with its flora & fauna on stage can be quite a challenge—but the play managed to pull it off with a flair. My personal on-screen favorite was the sequence when Simba’s dad speaks to him in his dream. His father’s ghost is represented by a giant lion’s face that gets assembled from separate pieces.  And my favorite ‘off-screen’ moment decidedly was when Simba & his love-interest Nala come close, apparently to plant a kiss on each other lips, and a 6-7 yr old kid in the back row shouted ‘AaaaWww!!’ causing the whole theater to burst into uproarious laughter!