Something for Everyone

We drove past this sign on the way to a workshop at Beaconhouse University in Lahore last Thursday. It gave me pause.

Master Biryani suffers from no lack of confidence. Lahore, Pakistan

Unlike Master Biryani, I worry about overpromising and underdelivering.

You see, I do believe in the potential healing powers of improvisation, particularly when the focus stays firmly on acceptance, non-judgment, and collaboration. Casim and I have been testing out this premise for the past two weeks, first in Islamabad and now in Lahore. By tomorrow evening (Inshallah/God willing), we will have conducted 18 improv workshops, presentations, and shows in just two weeks.

We’ve been busy.

And, I think, effective. At each of these events, we’ve lead the participants through exercises that encourage them to be in the present moment physically, mentally, and emotionally. I’d call this the crux of my CDAF (Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund) project. Witness my pedagogical stance below:

Teachers teach. At the United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan’s Lahore office.

And, I’ve left each of these workshops feeling energized and hopeful; the students–almost without exception–have participated with great gusto and commitment. I’ve learned a lot about short-form improv from Casim, and our debriefing sessions with the students, so crucial when connecting the lessons learned through improv exercises to a healthy mindset, become more succinct, more applicable with each session.

Casim, a talented and generous improviser, keeps me afloat. Together we explain how making your scene partner/friend/colleague look good alleviates self-consciousness and the anxiety that goes with it. Casim makes me look good.

Our connection, too, with Fizza Suhail, a trauma-informed therapist and a professor at LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences), has deepened our work considerably. Her discussions on attachment and attunement–our earliest relational connections and our subsequent ability to react in synchrony with others–have helped us explore how a playful, gentle, celebratory approach to human interaction can soften the petrifying effects of early trauma.

Casim Ovais; Fizza Suhail; me. A serendipitous convergence. (And they’re both really funny.)

We’ve gotten an exuberant response; I think we’re doing good work.

But I don’t want to be Master Biryani (remember him?) by promising the moon and stars. Our work is modest, as it should be. It’s also incremental, based on practice and repetition. Which is why I can’t stop thinking about the gentleman who sought me out after an evening workshop last week, wondering how he could possible use the “Yes, and…” approach when his country was, in his words, “falling apart.” “How will this training make a difference,” he asked, keeping his hand gripped to my forearm as he implored me for guidance.

Pakistani truck art with self-explanatory message.

His question caught me up short. Comparisons are odious, as my grandmother used to say, but I’ve wondered the same thing about my homeland, a place I love as much as the Pakistani gentleman at the workshop does his. What can improv do in the face of monumental challenges?

The scope of these challenges is daunting: Another mass shooting. A treasonous Speaker, second-in-line to the presidency. Wars which ignite and persist. Legislators mocking the less fortunate, mimicking their leader who threatens our citizens with violence, covering his ass by calling it all a joke.

None of it’s funny, of course.

So the question arises, again and again: How can we pursue mental health without crawling into a cave and praying–to whom?–for this massive madness to pass, for the constant barrage of horrible news to whittle down? What actual steps can we take? I didn’t want to offer improv as a panacea to the heartbroken Pakistani man. In that moment, I was stymied.

Have you heard of “screen apnea”? It seems we stop breathing when we first look at our screens. The smaller the screen, the longer we hold our breath. And then our nervous system engages in the fight-or-flight response and we find ourselves anxious and overwhelmed, all because of Facebook and group texts.

I finally responded, after I took a long breath, saying something like this: When we dread the future we often feel powerless. Our anxiety skyrockets. We can’t see each other for all the anger and despair. Improv offers a reprieve from this alienation by grounding us in the present moment. It can help us connect with others without regard to our affiliations, nationalities, sexualities, spiritualities. We can change this moment, and maybe the next, and then possibly the one after that. That’s something, right?

The Pakistani gentleman nodded. Maybe he didn’t believe me. Maybe he wanted a more encompassing answer. I can’t blame him, but I’ve seen the joy and lightness strangers can experience when they laugh together in the moment, and I told him that I hope improvisation can be a moment-by-moment antidote to all the poison in our shared atmosphere.

Maybe these pictures will help. In all of our workshops we stepped outside of the insanity and discovered something joyous. Witness:

At Olomopolo Media in Muslim Town, Lahore. Casim observed that practicing improv “inoculates” us from real stressors. An apt metaphor.

Beaconhouse University students, poised after a rigorous game of Zip-Zap-Zop.

A school picture? No! It’s the participants at the United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan’s office in Lahore. Thanks again to Casim and Fizza Suhail for bringing the PowerPoint to life and then some (we laughed; they laughed; we kept the staff at the USEFP office well past closing time)(thanks and sorry!).

With Casim and the NUR International University psychology students at Fatima Memorial Hospital in Lahore after a FIVE HOUR workshop! Real stamina.

My feet on display after our show “Laughing Matters” at Olomopolo Media. A glorious evening where the performers and the audience members changed roles with ease. This is for Jen Scott: It was the definition of an Infinite Game, if an infinite game can allow itself to be defined.

Thanks to Olomopolo Media for hosting two workshops and our show. Cheers, too, to Fizza Suhail who improvised on stage for the first time and made it look effortless.

Casim and I fly to Karachi this afternoon. I’ve loved being in Lahore. None of these photos does the majesty of this place justice, but I’ll give it a go:

Outside the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore.

Domes and minarets above the canopy of trees.

Puri in flight before sizzling in oil. Outside the famous Capri Restaurant, Lahore.

Lahore at night on the grounds of the Gymkhana. The word “gymkhana” derives from an early term for tennis. Or polo. Alligator shirts and stuff.

The garden outside Olomopolo Media. Could sit here all evening.

Compelling sculpture outside the Quaid-e-Azam library.

Watchful cat in the Bagh-e-Jinnah (Garden of Jinnah) (Jinnah was Pakistan’s first governor-general).

Quiet morning in Lawrence Gardens.

The hosts at NUR International University sponsored me at the Lahore Gymkhana, a kind of country club that has turned its back on the modern world. Strange, quiet, serene, colonial, hidebound, exclusive/exclusionary. Residents must adhere to a four-page dress code. I left my crocs at home:

“Where luxury comes as a guest to take a slave.” Thank you, Joni Mitchell.

The Lahore Gymkhana at night. Thanks to the hosts at NUR International University for letting me stay here. The breakfasts alone recommend the place; by the time the tenor sax renditions of 500 Miles, Jambalaya, and Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina had looped I’d find myself well into my third serving of halva. Sugar, oil, flour, butter: addictive.

Imposing guard with kind eyes at the Lahore Gymkhana.

A few more photos from Lahore:

Wrestling with a peacock in Lawrence Gardens. The real ones–which show up when least expected–could take me in an instant.

My mug is everywhere. Here I’m hovering above the welcoming committee at NUR International University. They gave me beautiful flowers, too.

Casim points at my face with a collection of colleagues at Fatima Memorial Hospital.

(Days have passed; now I’m in Karachi. As I type this I’m sitting on my bed in the Karachi Gymkhana, waiting to start again. Here’s a preview):

Does this need a caption?

In the meantime, I’m going to take a page from Master Biryani’s book and offer some unsolicited and universally applicable advice. Please use it wisely:

I like comments. Lots of them. Just saying.