Sanskrithi Diaries Part 3 - The competitions

I’ve lost count of the number of competitions we went for, but here are a few “special” ones that I remember.

I’m sure that my batch mates remember this one: We got a chance to perform at a college (no names!) in Bangalore, and although we were initially skeptical, we did eventually go there. It had unfortunately rained that evening, and the (carpeted) stage where we had to perform was a MESS. The carpet smelt bad, the stage was slippery and the audience…well, they were the most enthusiastic crowd we had ever performed before! As we went on with our Dashavataar, the people in the audience cheered and hooted crazily. Some guys in the audience even took of their shirts and started copying our steps! After we finished our dance, we didn’t even wait for the results! We just left from there immediately, amidst the cat calls and the comments passed our way! (any one remember the guy singing “Hey Paro”?!)

Another incident that makes me laugh even now is when we performed at some college which was situated very far from the city. But as our luck would have it, it started raining very heavily, and leaving from that college became very difficult! Anyways, so we packed our costumes, props, make-up etc. and thought we would wait for the rain to subside and then leave. But we suddenly remembered that we hadn’t taken permission to return late to hostel, and we had to get back ASAP. Three of the girls had bikes with them that day, so six of us went on the bikes to the main road, thinking we could get autos there. We went on and on but not a single auto driver was willing to take us! It was raining heavily, there were strong cold winds, we had all the big bags, we were sitting on the bikes and it was getting closer to our hostel curfew! Finally, we got an auto and three of us got in, while the biker girls went back to pick up those who were waiting in the college! I think it was Sahana, Arya and me in the auto, along with some of the bags and a laptop. That auto ride was memorable indeed! We were feeling very cold and there was a lot of traffic, trees had fallen onto the roads and vehicles had just stopped moving, and all this while we were worried about getting late to hostel! We somehow managed to reach till the Rajarajeshwari Arch when our auto stopped, due to all the water logging! Then we managed to get another auto and jumped from this one into that. To keep ourselves warm, I think the three of us started singing in the auto :D We managed to reach hostel just in time, and the other girls who were on the bikes also came soon enough. I don’t remember if we won that competition or not, but for me, it was truly unforgettable!

Remember the competition at PESSE? We gave our best and performed quite well, and were happy with our second prize…until we got to know why we didn’t come first! I’m not going disclose the details, but in short, some “transactions” took place and once we realized what had happened, we were shocked!

After the first few competitions, our routine was quite standard. Rashmi would collect costumes and props from Prasiddhi, we would take permission from hostel, go to the fest, get ready in ten minutes, wait in line for Sushma and Sahana to do our make-up, perform Dashavataar, collect the prize and return! :D

 

Okay, we didn't look exactly like this...but we were close!