Gandhar

‘Gandhar’ the annual cultural week of Cumins College Of Engineering for Women. It’s the week of no studies, practicals and lectures bunked in the name of sports and ‘dance practice’. A time when professors don’t care how much you yell in the corridors and when attendance is the highest.
The week ends with the gandhar night. Prizes, dances, music, plays, and loads and loads of snaps.

This year, I was a part of the alumni. Went to college after a really long time. Was filled with excitement from the moment I set foot inside the gate. The auditorium was packed already by the time we reached.
All the best places, like the stairs, the balconies, were full. But being the alumni, we were allowed to take the coveted chairs arranged for staff, and ex-students who are lukka enof to attend the program. :D

The chief guest was a famous actor/model from pune, Sameer Dharmadhikari, (yessss, iv remembered the name correctly this time!!) who, by the way, happens to be abso-flipping-lutely handsome. All the students (and a few .. ahem… professors too ) were “ooooooh!!!” **imagine a fey eye-batting smilies here** and almost falling off the balconies with excitement.
He was given a grand welcome of cheers, and whistles, and he seemed quite scared/shocked/dumbfounded to walk on to the dias. The compearers (hope that’s the correct word …. It is supposed to mean hosts) for the event (the cultural team) were all dressed up for the occasion. The never spoken of, but ever present competition, to impress the cute guy was in the air. The other guests were allowed to speak first, but wire nice enough to finish up the talk fast.
Almost all the prizes were distributed “Sameer Dharmadhikari hyancha haste” so, the best class award witnessed the WHOLE of the best class, and their friends, crowding the stage.
Then came the big hit event for the eve, ‘a chat with sameer’. I think they had tried to make it resemble the famous show ‘coffee with karan’. It did indeed resemble 'Coffee with karan', except that there was no coffee, …. And no karan :D..
Two students and a professor barraged the poor guy with questions, which he answered graciously, and with obvious maaz which was beyond doubt….... ‘justified’. The usual stuff: how do you find acting as a career, what was it like, acting in hollywood, and bollywood, and why did you decide to shift to acting after doing engineering in mechanical?..
Then came the ‘dialogue of the day’ from none other than the ‘enthusiastic’ (and that’s an understatement, when I say enthusiastic) Thombre madam..... “I want to share you something, garls!!!!.... Sameer is married!” And I heard so many hearts breaking from across the auditorium. Mine must have been one of those too. =((
Well, most people lost interest in the ‘chat’ after that (I know I did).
But there was a request to Sameer to sing a song. He forwarded the same to Kishor Desai, who also was a guest. (he has made a new album recently on water. It is kind of a message to all people to save water.) He sung it very well, and then sameer took away everyone’s heart again by singing ‘mee morcha nela nahi’ from ayusshavar bolu kahi and then took off ( I think to meet his pretty wife ‘appu’ )

So, then started the gathering.
All the alumni were called up on stage for a group snap. the front two rows stood like good girls for the snap, and behind them.. this has to be said in marathi ... stage var mage ‘bharat bheti’ chalu hotya “hiiiiiiii!!!” “ kashi ahes” “Kuthe ahes saddhya?” ani “aga ti bagh lalita!!!!” mhanun Jyoti palali.

Then we were asked to go to the architecture building where there was dinner arranged for us. We met all the professors, updated them with whats is going on in our lives( in my case, not much), mail ids exchanged, lots of group snaps and my face had started to ache from smiling too much. Lekha and I ditched dinner, (waiting in the line for an hour) and went to see the programs.

There were many dances, some good, some bad, some… ‘no comments’… But what I specially liked was a mime act, named ‘Nishabd’. It was a small skit about the five human senses … sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch; competing with each other and claiming that each is the most important. But it is finally the inner self that feels. It was very well presented and got a lot of ‘once more’s. Each dance and prize was invariably followed by screams of “C-O-M-P” or “E-N-T-C” or “F-Eeee F-E” or finally “CUMMINS, CUMMINS” and I was scared of my eardrums going on strike soon. But I joined the chant anyways.

Then we went to a new ‘durga’ outlet near our college, and had awesome cold coffees around the cramped table. All in all, it was a wonderful evening. Met many friends, many professors and many more memories. All the familiar places dabba khaycha katta, writeups lihaychi balcony, ani project sathi i-card deun ‘permanantly’ udhari var ghetlela DSO... (Maddy, Dixit sir bhetle baraka ;) )
Things we took so for granted without realizing they meant so much, things I’ve missed badly for the past year and half…. Things that I hope will never change.

Nostalgic,
-Madhura.