The biggest smiles can be found in Kulwant Hall these days. And they are contagious too. So I suggest please do visit here as early as possible for, such blessed moments are rare to find.
Ratnahara Veeryaanjaneya (Brave Hanuman) was an event where the excitement, joy, and hard work of hundreds of students reached a pinnacle. It was the title of our drama given by Swami Himself when He asked Prof. Anil Kumar to announce in Hill View stadium on January 11 evening after the sports meet presentation. He called Mr Anil Kumar and told Him, “Announce that the boys are putting up a drama tomorrow evening. It has script, dialogues, acting, costumes and sets that has never been seen before.” That was indeed an apparent exaggeration, we felt, since we had a long way to go in preparing sets and fine tuning dialogues. Many mouths were gaping wide open in shock when the announcement was made.
After the sports meet, we assembled back in the college auditorium by 8 pm. Our teacher in charge briefed us of what exactly happened on the stage, which made Swami to prepone the drama from 15th to 12th. It seems He had mentioned about the drama to a few VIPs and told them to watch it on 15th. But many of them had planned to return back by 13th Jan. Realising this, Swami had decided on this step. But our Sir told us that, if Swami can choose to put us into soup, He will also make sure that we somehow come out of difficulties and succeed in our efforts. Besides, it was not the first time He was doing this.
By 8pm, our readiness was something like this : sets were 50 % complete, dialogues and acting needed to be refined by 20-30%. Besides, a new Rama and Lakshmana had to be found for the last scene since the original actors would not be able to change into new costumes for the scene on time. So we had 2 pairs of Rama-Lakshmana. We bravely went ahead with the preparations, knowing that our eyes would be rarely rest for the next 24 hours. You could find people practicing on all corners of the college. The drama troupe had 48 members. Back in the hostel, the number of people working on sets had more than doubled. Other boys in our hostel had realized our predicament and everybody came forward to help in any manner possible. All said, “This evening’s presentation by our campus was a big hit. Now, we’ll make sure no efforts are spared to make tommorow’s drama a superhit.” That was great bonding.
Between scenes we could catch forty winks; the boys slept on the steps, some in the foyer, some beside the stage itself. We returned back to the hostel at 3 am. The next day began pretty soon and we were back in auditorium by 8.30am. After a full rehearsal with the final drama CD (with dialogues and songs) that was made ready only last night, we proceeded to the Kulwant Hall for getting a feel of the stage. This time, the stage was facing Gopuram Gate (as opposite to the usual Portico), since Swami had insisted on this setting in the previous drama.
Even in Kulwant Hall, the boys didn’t waste time to nap in between scenes. Some leaned against the walls in upper portico whereas some were resting right inside the verandah. I really got as nice nap here before I was woken up to vacate and allow the sevadal people to clean the place. We had neither seen the sets nor our costumes, hence we were getting ready for a very suspense filled evening, both for the devotees and ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment