My mom insisted i join her for the Onam celebration held here by one of the mallu associations. Now, I have almost never enjoyed them, coz they are the second most boring affairs, after
1. The meetings i attend on a daily basis and
2. Lux Perfect Bride..
And I sure wasn't planning to invest 4 hrs to hear out-of-tune singing, have an insipid lunch and return after having gone over my academic background, current occupation and answering the ever challenging "where.. ..in 5 yrs?" question, over 40 times... I declined. She asked again. I declined. She pulled out the heavy artillery with the emosanal atyachar "Can't you come along for my sake?" I declined, asking if she'd go front row for a rock concert, just for my sake... silence ensued....
But with Nano and all the sleepless nights mom has, taking care of her, i agreed.. Plus my i-call-her-aunt aunt and her niece (I went to watch my aunt.. not her niece, just to clarify!) were in a couple of traditional dances, which i did wanna see.. and she requested me to get it recorded. So, handy-cam in tow, i set out.. braving the prospect of yawning my jaws off, once the dances are done. The traditional dances are always nice, and the other performances are well, as much excitement as a Namibia - Bermuda cricket encounter held in Turkmenistan..
But boy! Was i wrong! The entire programme was awesome. There was tons of participation from the kids, and suddenly, the average age of a participant had plummeted from 65 to 15! The opening prayer was awesome, followed by excellent
Kaikottikalli.. followed by an array of stunning fusion numbers, a drama, 2 classical dance renditions.. all ending in an awesome gala, which had even the senior-most grooving and jiving a-la Travolta.
The only part of the program that gave me that sinking feeling
"uh oh.. back to ol' times" was when the chief guests landed on the dais. The chief guest list was as long as a voting list from a small town, and the emcee merely scanned the audience and invited more people on-stage. I ducked under his radar (not that i was running a risk, but who wants to take a chance!) and counted around 5 C.Gs on-stage..
5 minutes and the stage had some 10 senior mallus, a lawyer, a social worker, a journalist, a smiling firangi (from the Czech Consulate) who looked like he could bring down a building with a sneeze (6'6", maybe more and built like an army tank) and a bunch of guys running around with mics, all of them with a love for the mic that is touching to see. Most of the guys rattled off Malayalam that left the veterans scouring through their dictionaries, me scratching my head, the firangi still wearing the same smile, searching for a cue to begin clapping, and the rest of the people dazed. Enter the chiefest chief guest.. Some principal of some college.
30-something... And as he adjusted the mic and started to speak, some 5000 kms away.. in a graveyard in Athens... Socrates' was beside himself in joy yelling
"Theres 2 of us! Theres 2 of us!" I didn't quite get this reincarnates name.. so anyway, my man Sock-rats went on and on and on, while the audience shut their dictionaries, relaxed on their chair and started to snooze. His subject was about how technology had altered inter-personal relations and how nothing is permanent. Well, at that precise moment, his speaking did seem to be, and given the couple of mythological dramas I had just seen, I was praying hard for a Pralayam of sorts.. My ears were going numb from the onslaught, and i still cant feel them as i write this... Hmm.. thats strange, can we really not feel our ears or has he done some permanent damage?
When i was elbowed out of my slumber by mom 15 minutes later i heard him say "So to conclude..". All the senior mallus were looking for signs of lunch, the kids were curled up in a corner, fast asleep and the firangi was still wearing the same smile on his face coupled with a look of sheer determination as he fought away every yawn that creeped up on him. 10 minutes passed.. Some sections of the audience began clapping, and finally.. oh finally! he let go of the mic. I'm pretty sure some one in the audience brandished a knife or held out a gun or a rocked launcher or something! Slow-gun Murugun seemed to have saved the day! Mr. Vocal Diarrhoea wore the look of a kid who had been robbed off his candy, waved ta-ra and got back into his Neelkamal chair.
Hard to tell if the firangi was smiling thinking of this character he had encountered or whether it was the original smile. Ah darn, my long term memory sucks and I can't recall the original smile! But anyway, he nevertheless smiled..
The meals were just about OK.... but boy oh boy, what an entertaining day i'd had.. Nice dances.. a long nap and then some more awesome performances from the kids... This celebration is something i will look forward to next yr!
