MAYA KRISHNA RAO totters onto the stage in kitten heels, perches elegantly on a stool, picks up her cup of tea, and, as the audience waits with palpable excitement, says her first lines from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story Quality Street.
“We were drinking tea…” And then the face mic clams up. A soloist’s worst nightmare.
“Can’t hear! Can’t hear,” the audience at Delhi’s Habitat Centre complains. Without missing a beat, Rao carries on with the Nigerian pidgin, but shifts the rant to the sound folks. A small crisis averted, she resumes the play, an ambitious Nigerian mother’s rant about a daughter who wants a minimalistic wedding.
Next day, at the Jamia Nagar Ramleela ground, the 63-year-old is doing her viral act, Not in My Name, on hate crimes. It…
