I decided to document some jolly memories of my pre-university college days at National College Jayanagar....What brought me to do this ? It was Vinay's Promotion Treat( Good work Vinay! ) - and the four of us ( Vinay, Avinash , Bili and I ) kept yakking about all those incidents that kept us entertained back then - and continue to tickle us even now.
It was the annual Drama competition at NCJ and the four of us along with NRP and Sunil Bhargava were all set to present our new creation - " Poorna Viraama". I don't remember the story line well - but the theme was on Psychology - how a person can die of shock if someone were to convince him that the water he just drank was poisoned , even though, in reality it wasn't ! Heavy theme, eh ? I wonder how we cooked it up :)
So, after a couple of practice sessions , we were all set . I was the scientist , Vinay the doctor , Avinash the 'Khaidi' and Pramod ( Bili ) his accomplice , Prasad - the businessman ( who dies ! ) and Linus ( ya, we used to call Sunil that :) ) the Policeman. It was really fun ! The drama was supposed to be a serious one - but unfortunately , we were in - to describe it in Kannada slang - 'Sikkapatte Time-pass' mode ! lol
Two minutes before start-time - we were frantically trying to set the stage right - putting all possible props wherever we could and simultaneously violating Newton's Law of two things not being able to occupy the same place at the same time .Anxious moments - hardly any time left before the curtain went up . For a split second , all of us stopped talking at the same time and NRP who happened to walk in at that instant , looked around and seriously remarked , " I think we should decompose them" - pointing to a pair of desks which were kept adjoining each other!
We burst out laughing ! Decompose ?! What a choice for a verb :) The whizkid of our college was probably mentally solving a linear system using matrices ( - LU decomposition right? ) !!
One joke after another , we started giggling and cracking up when suddenly the bell sounded and OOPS - we had to start the play ! aargh..it was so difficult to start looking serious and start off those high-sounding heavy dialogues.
I especially remember one of Vinay's - ( bcoz I helped write that one! ) - he shows a pen to the audience and says , " Ee pen nodi ..Idhu yaavdara melaadru thanna 'mark' bidabohudu , aadhre - thanna melae thaanae 'mark' bedakkaagaththa? " : err..supposed to be philosophical ! Jeez. Don't ask me why or in what context that came up !!!
Anyway, on and on we went and finally the play came to an end. Hmm..decent applause. But the real "appreciation" came in the end - Expert comments :-
[ The folks at NCJ had taken the trouble to get a professional dramatist to judge our play - he actually observed every part of it with a microscope! Our response was , " Dude, chill man - we were just trying to have fun ! " Somehow, the lecturers and the judge were inclined to disagree :) ]
So, the feedback :-
1) " Over-acting ! " ( No Comments - sheepish grin )
2) " The police file on the table did not have even a single paper in it when the policeman browsed it. " [ You actually noticed that ? :) ]
and finally the best one....
3) " The calendar in the room was at a height of 8 feet from the ground. " [ Hahaha.... How dumb of us ! We actually used a large stool to pin that calendar onto the curtain - it never occurred to us that - NORMALLY people don't use a ladder to hang their calendars in their houses ! It is always something that is at an accessible point ! )
Oh well , in Vinay's words - " It was the death knell to our acting careers " LOL . True, here we are - software engineers !
P.S: To be fair, our "Krishna Sandhaana" play WAS a big hit both in school , college and why - even REC ( farewell party ) ! So, we have that talent you know, we just need a good break - right Boys ??
9 comments:
Great post !! Those were the times. I cant help the nostalgia....sniff
I am going to be liberal at commenting coz after all, this is about us !!
Frankly, this was my first serious play. Coming from an overdose of "Krishna Sandhana" performances, I was baffled at my "varied" abilities..damn, I was "designed" for the stage, not these computers. hehe
I think NRP was working out a packing algorithm. We had just finished learning about Hexagonal Close, Face-centred cubic and body-centred cubic :P NRP had one for arranging props on stage as well. For some reason our arrangement didn't fit the scheme of his algorithm. (He probably had a stack overflow when he ran our arrangement through his algo to check satisfiability. After deep comtemplation (which lasted for 1.8976049 secs), he realised that we had clubbed the desks together. Apparently, he had two separate variables for each of those desks. Suddenly, there was one variable less in the system.
If you remember, there was another team, probably our seniors, who had enlisted the services of a "free-lance" director. A couple of days before show-day, he saw our play and handed down a huge list of fundaes. Obviously, we all thought he was showing off. Now we know how wrong we were. But heck, I hated that guy from day one. Especially the way he was behaving with the other team (which comprised largely of girls)
Now about the judges - well, obviously they took their jobs a bit too seriously. This was a college show, for god's sake. Somebody should have taken them out for a "drinks" break before our show.
Hehe, I really enjoyed all those rehearsals and brainstorming we would do in the initial phase of things.
And drawing lots to decide the cast was a stroke of genius! :))
Nice Post! Miss those good old days!
Once GSS was watching our rehearsal. So the first scene, Kandy is checking my heart with the stethoscope. With me overacting with full enthu, the stethoscope's tube came off in to my hand. Sunil started laughing, and then both me and Kandy started laughing. All of us laughed and laughed on .. and then GSS said :
Allalla.. Seriousness yellinda tagondu barodu :)
@prasad:
Allalla.. Seriousness yellinda tagondu barodu :)
sreeee lanka inda
@Vinay , @Prasad :
I am amazed how you guys can remember those interesting incidents - Yeah, with that "Free-lance" director and the one where the stethoscope came off !
ROFLMAO !
hey kandy
plays eh? u never told me in college u were in acting in school :o)
he he...sounds fun....but translate that dialogue of murthy's to english :o)
@dutta :
It means, "A pen can put a mark on everything around it, but can it put one on itself ?? "
hehe
LOL. I think I missed out on your performance. Good post - brought on a sudden attack of nostalgia. *SIGH*.
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