Monday, November 3, 2008

The Great Indian Cultural Show

So, the word is out that we are going to have a Diwali Event in our school with different people showing their talents and different cultures coming together to create a rocking night integrated with singing, dancing and other performance to celebrate culture of India.

I got a chance to revisit the past and dwell in the pleasant memories. Both in U.S. and in India (yes I have always been a part for all these circus events in most possible ways), I have witnessed some interesting reactions and chain of events that follow after the first word about a cultural/talent event is out. So, I am putting forward a satirical view of a typical scenario that occurs during every such event, especially in U.S.:-
  • No sooner the event is mauled over; there will be one enthusiastic guy/girl with a sparkle in the eyes and ambition, of showing Indian culture to the world, only rivaled by the one possessed by Mamata Baneerjee to save farmers of Singur. This typical creature will always seem like smoking special kind of weed because he/she will be living in a world of his/her own to neglect the lack of enthusiasm of the people forming the group in particular and community in general.

  • The most common discussion will be on kind of theme for the show and most people will come up with the “Traditional Theme”, showing different dances from different prominent states, which is as fresh as Indian food cooked couple of days ago.

  • Not to be left behind, one particular character, in a typical “eureka” moment will come up with a “Fusion Theme”, which is as innovative as a romantic song around trees in a bollywood love story.

  • There will be this particular character, preferably as boy who would be in even before the event is officially declare and all along keep on mentioning his story about how he played Ravan in one of the cultural events during his school days in India and how he never needed a make-up for it. If you squeeze him more, you will be enlightened to know that he only agreed to become Ravan because he wanted to have a chance to flirt dance with the college stunner girl who played sita but ended up dancing with Mandodari and her friends.

  • There will always be one guy, who shows the relation between his state of mind and reality by insisting on adding a bhangra step to the hip-hop section because he had seen a group doing this bhangra step at talent show during a social gathering at a place in old Delhi.

  • Without fail, like an obnoxious weed, there will be few guys who would want to participate for only one sole reason: to mingle with the chicks. This particular creature will be never interested in the proceedings but will volunteer if the matter of their fantasy is doing it.

  • All those wanna be Farah Khans and Ganesh Hegdes, the self-promoted choreographers, will be knocking their heads to create something, which according to them will be the next creative thing after “The Mona Lisa” painting.

  • Then, there will be one person who seems to have a tag “I’m an A-hole” written over his forehead. He will show up during the rehearsals for “expert” opinion and just like the smell after a fart would never leave.

  • There would be lot of different interesting characters like some guy with dance skills as good as sunny deol wanting to be the main character, some girl even shy of holding a guys hand as if holding a guys hand was the ultimate sin of modern world, somebody insisting to dance on traditional song (i.e. the song in his state language though the song may sound like a bhangra) etc.

I can keep writing but I have decided against it because I do not want to sound self-referential anymore I think you got the point.

Though, I would like to reveal my artistic side as a gesture to show my appreciation of you for reading this article. I will put forth some of the themes I had thought of but knowing that they would be rejected due to unappreciative nature of the people involved towards my artistic ideas. Here are few examples:
  • Setting contemporary Ramayan in U.S. and focusing mainly on Ravan (remember, we would already have an experienced guy playing this) and how he wrecked havoc in the world. But I think the chief guest and other guests will be offended as they would think we copied George Bush.

  • Like they use to show about freedom fighters in past, a theme on the constructive role played by our modern politicians like Raj Thackeray and Mamta Banerjee but I think they would not allow showing blood on stage.
    Portraying few Bollywood blockbuster film’s story one by one on stage but that will make the show repetitive (read again if you didn’t get it).

Apart from these, I have decided that if somebody comes up with the idea of state-wise traditional dance, I would insist to include the dances of entire 28 states and 7 union territories.

P.S. 1: Disclaimer to all the participants of the ISALB Diwali Cultural Show: This article was return couple of days before the first meeting. Any comparison to any real character is purely co-incidental. In other words, if you think some of the characteristics have been seen during the event then I think I should start predicting future.

P.S: 2: Please do not ask me which category I fall in; you can judge from all these detail description itself. Those who liked my article and had fun reading, please show your appreciation by replying in comments section.

P.S 3: After the event, I will try to upload the video of my participation and please note that I would not be responsible for any post-video trauma caused to you. Do not tell me that I did not warn you.

1 comment:

  1. seriously didnt know tht u hv such great writing skills!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete

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