incandescens | memories of summer

It is hard not to sing along with Gilbert and Sullivan when you've got Pirates of Penzance and Trial by Jury playing on iTunes while writing.

(Especially with the "tarantara, tarantara" from the chorus of policemen.)

Weather today was undilutedly good. A nice change.

I remember being in a production of Trial by Jury (combined with HMS Pinafore -- that is, we did both of them together) when I was at university. I was in the jury, which while it was supposed to be all-male, had several of the women who could be suitably costumed slipped into it, owing to a lack of male chorus. It was being done as a production in the style of the Tenniel illustrations from Alice in Wonderland, which meant that the jury were all animals, so there was some latitude in costuming for hiding gender. Which meant that I, as a mole, was in a heavy jacket, waistcoat, shirt, tie, trousers, balaclava, and full-face makeup.

It was also August.

It was a positive relief to change into a full-length dress for Pinafore afterwards.

(The Abandoned Bride was the Queen of Hearts, the Judge was the King of Hearts, the Bridesmaids Chorus were all hearts cards, and the Defendant looked absolutely splendid as the Knave of Hearts. The greasepaint moustache suited him magnificently.)

---

Cat

Again and again through the day
I meet a cat.
In the tree's shade, in the sun, in the crowding brown leaves.
After the success of a few fish bones
Or inside a skeleton of white earth
I find it, as absorbed in the purring
Of its heart as a bee.
Still it sharpens its claws on the gulmohar tree
And follows the sun all day long.

Now I see it and then it is gone,
Losing itself somewhere.
On the autumn evening I have watched it play,
Stroking the soft body of the saffron sun
With a white paw. Then it caught
The darkness in paws like small balls
And scattered it all over the earth.

-- Jibanananda Das