RamlilaI have realised now that I am not be an Oscar class actor, there I have said it! Guess now you guys are happy. Take this as my apology and my confession. I am sorry if you guys suffered due to my on stage performance.

I have to confess that in my teens I use to consider myself a brilliant thespian. I think I must have been above average because my services were called for in all the plays arranged in our school. I think part of it was because I had lower than average level of stage fright.

School’s annual function is one of the main events in a budding school actor’s career. If you are studying in an army school, annual function is all the more glamorous as your parents and all the top brass of local army regiments are present.

I always selected for the most talked about play of our annual function. It had become one of the things I was proud of. I use to walk like a movie star for months after the annual function was over. As you may have guessed, something must have gone wrong in this rosy, glamorous acting career of mine that has compelled me to write this log. Yes, things did go wrong.

I had just completed my 8th standard. I was looking forward to the annual function and my summer holidays. The talked about show in that year’s annual function was Ramlila. I was keeping an eye on the notice board, and the day came when our Arts and Crafts teacher posted the notice for the play auditions. I walked into the audition with an air of a movie superstar. I looked at the other hopefuls with a look that said ‘Take a bow junior, the man is here’.

When my turn for the audition came, I went confidently on stage with a piece of paper with some dialogs written on it. I got my first blow when I looked at the dialogs. The dialogs were for a foot soldier in Ram’s Vaner Sena!! Ok now picture this, here I am a matured superstar actor, thinking that I will be given Ram’s or at worst Lakshman’s part but I get dialogs of a soldier monkey! I looked at the judges and said ‘Madam, there must have been some mistake. These dialogs are wrong’. Saritamadam, our Arts and Crafts teacher, looked at me with an unemotional face and said ‘Anirban, you don’t fit into any other character’. I can tell you, I felt my blood rushing to my head! I, the superstar don’t fit into any other character? The character fits on to me! So what do you mean, I fit into a soldier monkey’s character? Are you calling me a monkey? I sparked back ‘I dont want to do this part!’ and walked off the stage.

Weeks went by, the Ramlila practise was going on. I never even went close to the school wing where those ‘lesser actors’ were practising what I thought will be the greatest disaster humanity has seen. Then the evening came, the evening for which everyone was waiting, the evening of our annual function. The school was decorated, all the blacklisted students were given forced leaves, classes were arranged properly, strict dress code was enforced, all in all a complete war drill. The stage, oh the  magnificent stage, was decorated beautifully. I hated it thought, for the simple reason because I couldnt get on it! I just hated the sight of it.

I was roaming around like a lost soul when Saritamadam caught me. She was carring a bag of flowers ‘ganday kay fool’. Now let me describe this ganday ka fool. This flower is a compact flower but you can separate its petals. These separated petals are used in all Hindu ceremonies. If you don’t remove the petals and keep the flower intact, its a bit heavy and can be thrown to a distance with good accuracy. Sarita madam, completely unaware of these facts about this flower and my state of mind said ‘Anirban, take these flowers and sit in the front row with some of your friends. When they give the final pose of Ramlila, the pose when Ram, Sita and Lakshman stand in this majestic pose, shower these flowers on them. It will look wonderful’.

I always use to have very good friends. All my friends were like me, we were a bunch of hooligans. So I called on to my brothers in arms, and told them about the situation. We planned for a grand ending. We decided that when they cast that pose we will hit them with these compact ganday kay fools. One of my good friends suggest that we dip these flowers in ink water (its a solution of 30% ink and 70% water, usually used during pre-holischool days). We all argeed that this friend of mine (name withheld due to security reasons) was a brilliant man and his idea is a proof of that.

So there we were, five of us sitting in the first row with ink dipped ganday kay fools in our hands. The way we were smiling, everyone thought we were these religious good boys who had travelled a great distance to see this Ramlila.

Let me describe the gathering. We were sitting in this big assembly ground in the first row with the whole school sitting behind us. After that, there was a row hosting all the top army brass, behind that all the proud and happy faced parents. Yes my parents were there too. They were a bit sad that I was not one of the participants. Alas! if only they knew about my engagement that day.

So the Ramlila started, I have to say, Sita was looking good. Guess in school if a girl wears sari, you think she is looking good. They did perform pretty good and people were clapping. That gave me more fuel, more strength, more hatred. By the time the last pose was caste, I was fuming. Now imagine this, here are some 5 people on the stage, with all those costumes standing in this totally religious pose. At this very pristine moment we started hitting them with these ink dipped ganday kay fools. Man! I will tell you, the happiness it gave me was priceless. They were getting hit by these compact flowers, splashed with ink and water but the only thing they could do was to keep the pose till the curtains went down. Oh yes, they had to give this divine smile as well. More satisfaction on my side. The best past was after the curtains came down, they had to come from behind the curtains to take the bow, oh it was perfect. 5 mythological characters taking a bow with ink marks all over them.

I never did understand my teachers. They never saw the fun part in all this. They were not amused even a bit, in-fact they were furious. The summer holidays were starting from the very next day. So there was no way we 5 were going to get punished within 1 month. We knew after a month all the ink strains will be gone, we will be in a new class. We will have new teachers, new books and a new class room. That’s exactly what happened. We joined school after the summer holidays and we only found some angry faces looking at us. Pleasure and satisfaction they gave me. The only sad part is, I never got invited for another play till the time I was there in that school. But what the heck! I loved every moment of it.

If you were one of those unfortunate 5 actors, take my apologies. Atleast we never used pure ink! Hope that incident didn’t harm your acting career.