Super Saturday

An all-ladies choir?

It was verily an excuse to travel back in time. Bijoy Gupta had, in fact come up with a lovely catch-phrase, ‘Celebration of a Second Childhood’. Eventually we settled for CELEBRATING LIFE as the tagline for the banner put up on the Club’s Annual Day function at the China Hut in the evening.
This was in keeping with the theme song, Jeena isi ka naam hai – a chorus number that marked the opening of the function and became a recurring musical motif during the two-and-half hour ‘variety entertainment’ program that followed.
Chairman (Emeritus) Yusuf Rassiwala set the ball rolling at 6:40pm with a brief welcome speech before handing the mike over to the Master of Ceremonies, Kiran Prakash.

Arati and Juhi Babani 

By then the China Hut was packed to the rafters and the crowd had spilled over to cemented compound outside. To our good fortune, it did not rain like yesterday.

Chairman Yusuf Rassiwala

But the performance area for the artistes had shrunk severely and in the absence of a demarcated stage, the dancers particularly were restricted in their mobility. Even for our in-house play, Sone Ki Chain, the players could not cut across the floor (as was originally conceived) and had to hold themselves from trampling on or stumbling over one another. To make matters worse, one of the spotlights conked off midway!
Yet, none of this took anything away from the raw energy and vibrancy required for such a show. So what if some of us fumbled over our lines, sang off-key or just could not dance to save our lives… everybody had a ball.

Emcee Kiran Prakash

The audience clapped lustily from the moment a group of (member’s) kids set the floor on fire, followed by Juhi and Arati, Banoo Apa and Rafaqat, Shekhawat, with Siba Prasad Maitra belting out a hilarious parody, not to mention Mumtaz Jahan, Bijoy Gupta, Harish Wadhwa and most importantly,

A section of the audience... packed to the rafters

Shareen’s energetic dance number and Purohit’s rendering of a couple of vintage film hits.
The loudest applause erupted over Dilip Babani and Gupta gyrating to Bar Bar Dekho... – though choreographer Nadira’s dance performance was no less a surprise. Also, who can forget Bunty, a professional singer and regular in the Garden who treated us to a couple of soulful Kishore Kumar numbers and then there was Yusuf R also, shaking a leg on a Hemant Kumar ditty, evoking a deafening roar from the audience.
One can go on and on, what with the antakshari session, the many impromptu jigs after the function had ended, the mad scramble for the extra biryani boxes, Fruti tetrapacks, the little gifts given away to the kids and choreographers and so on. But to us, our biggest takeaway was the opportunity to join in a collective outburst of joy while individually reliving our childhood in those two-odd hours. It was palpable. It was infectious. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience!
Lt Col Angad Singh (from Mohali):
The Annual Day function proved to be a worthy show enjoyed by all, whether or not a member. This is one event that results in the culmination of activities of the year. The gathering shows that it was liked by everyone present. It speaks superbly of the efforts of the participants and talent of the actors. Very well done!