It was the first day of residency, when I was going to meet my co-workers and begin a new journey. I was filled with happiness, excitement, nervousness and tad bit of anxiousness as well, but I also knew that all these feelings will only lead me to learning new things, meeting new people and having new experiences. This was the day when I met Prachi, Mugdha and Ankit. I was happy that there were people from my city. Ankit lived close to me while Mugdha used to study here and later left for further education.

We began with talking about the program brief and later moved on to discussing our earliest experiences of performances. For me, my earliest experience of a performance that I saw live was a Diwali Pahat. It is a religious music performance by various artists at different location where they sing and play folk songs, Marathi classical songs, religious bhajans, etc. The setting of this performance is like that of a typical staged theater where the artists perform on a pedestal, in front of the audience.

Later that day we were all discussing our sites and to visit those. Ankit and I decided to go together to see our sites they were close by. It was indeed helpful to have someone give you a new perspective. We talked a lot that day about our sites and lives in Pune. He told me about his college and the work he does and we also made plans of things to do when in Delhi.

Two days later Ankit texted on the group that will have to leave the residency due to his college exams. I somewhere knew this would come up because he told me about his college schedule the previous day but I was still shocked to get the news. I had only known him for a couple of days but it still felt like, a good friend was leaving. I felt bad because we had become friends we connected over the similar lifestyle that we had here. It knew I would be different to not have him around but like they say, “the show must go on”, we move ahead to another week.

The next week begun and we had a new face joining us. It was Ketki. I was good to have a fourth member to the residency. I was happy because more the merrier but it was also taking me time to soak things in. So, I hope all these experiences help me to enhance my work and learn more.