Dwayne had a ball for his annual day this year. For a long period of time, in the run-up to the big day we used to pester him about what part he was playing for the performance. But he kept mum. We gave up after that, resigning ourselves to viewing it in the magnificent Rabindra Bhavan instead. His studied silence quite intrigued us but we took it as a sign of growing up. Earlier he was quite at home on the stage at the Goa Arts and Literary Festival frolicking with the mike et al.
The day finally arrived and I whisked him off to Ravindra Bhavan at 4 p.m. to get ready for the evening. He had this lovely orange outfit on and we got a hint of what he would be doing when a few days before he came home and to our repeated queries stunned us with permitting 4 precious syllables out of his mouth. 'African dance' was all we got. Still it was something to go on.
Queenie had riding practice at 4.30 p.m. So we went there. She was happy at the learning experience. At 5 we headed to RB to watch our son perform. Baina beach never looked so crowded before. There were cars everywhere and in the melee I was glad I had clicked baba's photo (above top) at 4 itself.
The programme for the Annual Day was a tasteful display of a variety of items all performed by the little ones. They surpassed themselves in the Fancy Dress event where about 20 of them dressed up as a famous personality of India.Traditional dances were performed from the states of India like Assam, Maharashtra, and Punjab. Captivating skits and natak driving home home-truths were staged much to the delight of the audience. One was of the passers-by who refused to remove the stone in the middle of the road, preferring to go around it. When one finally did he is rewarded by the king. The other was about how the lost necklace of the king is retrieved. The audience gasped when the curtain opened to show around 20 girls about the age of 3, dressed in pink satin in perfect ballet pose waiting for the music to start..
Undoubtedly, a lot of effort had gone into the preparation. Baba could be barely seen in the group on stage, being in the back row, As he shook his hand this was and that we felt more steps could have been added to make it more lively. The evening ended with the national anthem with the entire cast and crew on stage. While the Annual Day had a distinctly pan-Indian flavour - the compere shifting from English to Hindi, as the show went on -- I missed the cadence of Konkani which signifies our roots. Dwayne and us after 5 were there from 4 to almost 8 p.m. in the hall without a bite to eat. The elaborate circular had expressly asked us to refrain from bringing any eatables for the kids - or even water. These, they said, would be provided -- and it wasn't.
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