Saturdays and Sundays need not necessarily be the best days for young single people in cities other than their home-towns. I can vouch for this after having the better part of past 5 odd years in various locations.
Bangalore, for me, is slightly different though. I have already developed a love-hate kinda relation with it and there is nothing about this city that I really peeve or am gung-ho about. Its give me a feeling of being Bombay's younger, not-so-worthy sibling tryin to ape its more illustrous bro.
This city is alive with a basic funda: Maal hai to Taal hai. If you got the money, flash it. If you flash it, the city may dance to your tunes. While the thrill and exhilration provided by this is nice and feels good for sometime; the reality soon dawns on you the day your credit card bills come looking.
Hence after a while Sundays become a dreaded proposition. What to do becomes an existential query rather than a curious prod. Amidst all these problems, this past Sunday came like a breezy dream. A much needed change of plans and monotony. I attended a Marathi get-together.
On the onset, let me confess that I am not a big proponent of the language and my only contribution to it is that I am born into a Mahrashtrian family. So, when my friend invited me and my roomies to attend a marathi get-together of Mahrashtrians in Bangalore, I readily said yes hoping only for some good food and changing my routine.
As always sticking to time-tables is very unIndian. Hence we found ourselves at the doorsteps of the hall with four other people and a bunch of volunteers (my roomie being one of them) right at the stroke of 9 (when we were supposedly gonna start off).
However, this delay was one of the very few blemishes on a day of great fun and candor. Braving the power outage our show started with Ganesh pooja thanks to a power packed generator. What followed this was splendid.
We had a great start to the show with cultural dance followed by a very witty Quiz thereafter. I was ashamed at my shallow knowledge about the language and the state. This was quickly overcome though by the spell binding dance presented again by the same lady who had kicked off the event. Such was the soul of the dance and expressions on her face that we felt transformed to the event she was describing...
The start was nice and hopes had built up. Another surprise was in store when it was announced that a very talented singer is being called in specially from PUNE to help us lose ourselves in a sea of melody. Now; my marathi song database (read, my brain) has a storage of just about 30 songs and this made me a bit apprehensive about how I would like it but to my pleasant surprise; the next hour and half seemed to be a dream. It seemed like the lady knew what song I was aware of and sung just the same. Seemed like a personal juke-box sorta.... Amazing....
By the time this program got over it was past 1 and "Potat Kawale Ordu Lagale Hote". My hunger was further accentuated by an announcement that YUVA- group of earlier settling Bangalore youngsters would be performing a local dance form called " Gaav Gavlan and Batawani". I wasnt too keen on this "social comment come satirical presntation" as my tummy had already started bataving me that breakfast was a distant dream and reality beckoned... But, as if to quiten all my ramblings; I witnessed the spectacle of the day. Very crisp commentary on the social realities coupled with some great acting and even better songs and hot-off-the-pan dialogs, this was a scorcher. The audience forgot their hunger and willed YUVA to go on and on and on... And on and on, they went. Finally wrapping up half past two, we got a much deserved one hr lunch break.
Back from the break; we were all enthu for more and Yuva presented one more masterpiece. This time they enacted the 80's special- Ek aur Anek... That famous animated cartoon with their own twists, turns and choreography. It was great fun. Then came other dances: Folk, filmy and whaateva u can imagine... Interspersed between this was an amazing experiment to garner audience interaction and improve networking of the members through some very intelligent team creation(give seperate color ribbons to participants as they enter so that common frds dont end up on single team..brilliant) and setting up games like JAM, The Wish list and Pencil Sharpening. All in good fun and jest. I believe the lure of Perk was also party responsible though.
This was then followed by some quickfire gift presentations and then the finale: That ever-enthu mad caper " Dhagala Lagali Kala".... Best part of it all... Organizers valued our time and wrapped up this magical evening by 5:30..dot on time....
We had broken the conventional IST punctuality syndrome and I was very proud of it. An amazing day made even sweeter with that saccharine sweet language all around and topped off with amazing punctuality.... HATS OFF.....
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