Minnalae - The creative stage show

I woke up today morning at around 8 AM and still to get away from the bed place, I wanted to hear some songs. Played a huge playlist in Winamp. The song was from the movie Minnalae (Music: Harris Jayaraj), the theme music. It just brought me good memories of the past where six dancers went onto stage to make a "Creative" Stage show!!

That was my final year at PEC (2003) and PECOFES (College day) was about to happen in another few days time. All through the college life, I had been hardly on stage and it was high time for me with my friends to give a stage performance. So there was a discussion going amoung our friends as to who has to get onto stage to perform. Six (professional) dancers decided that they had to host a dance show to prove that Computer Science Department is in no-way lesser than any other departments. (Un)Fortunately I was one amoung them. So we decided our positions. Our frontline dancer was none other than the legend Swaminathan (Call him Sam, he nearly has 3 years of experience in dancing, all offstage performance with people who have hardly dreamt of dancing). The next row was the brilliant me (Call me Visu, budding performer, obviously not in dancing) and Prebakar (Call him Prabha, the only guy who knows a bit of dancing). The last row was filled in by our CR Suresh (Call him Suri, hardly ever thought what dancing is or neither what bending his knees and hands is. He must have been an army guy) and the none other than our Magesh who calls himself Maddy (Read it Mannagatty. He had such great skills which could'nt even make dancing atleast an exercise). And last but never the least, the only guy with some stage performance experience Mr. (Thennal) Karthik. He has good skills, he does mimcry very well. But unfortunately he was not allowed to perform mimicry, he had to dance). Oops forgot about our moral support master, Mr. Saikiran, the perusu, who has an extremely good sense of humour. He is good at making mischieves and making other get caught for it and he remains as if he had never heard of that incident. I wonder if he was the one who initiated the thought but never had been a performer with us.

After deciding on the team, we all decided to go for a fusion song starting with a slow melody and ending with a fast rock song. Songs chosen, a initial few seconds from the song Janani Janani (Old song and we chose this for actually no reasons) followed by a clipping from Ilayaraja's “How to name it”. Next was from the song who has been a “Hero” for this blog entry, the theme music from the movie “Minnalae” and next was a clipping from an old song “Kannaikatti Kollathae” from "Iruvar" followed by a song from the movie “One Two Three”. Finally a rock song to complete the show. Until the song Minnalae all five of us (Sam, Visu, Prabha, Suri, Magesh) will dance and then for the M.G.R. song thennal will dance. And for the 1, 2, 3 song Sam and Prabha and finally the whole of the CSE department on stage for the rock song.

The “panchathanthiram” team planned for the steps themselves until the song as if they were the legendary choreographers. Finally it came out to nothing. All utter flop steps. All we knew was that we had to be “creative”, but how? So we had none other option to go to our only well-known college dancer Mr. Giddy (senior, CSE). He taught us few steps for the songs we chose. When he dances it looked like a dance, and when we did the same it bloody, it does'nt even look like an exercise, it was more of an drunkard dance. We learnt his steps and we thought of practising to make the “Drunkard dance”, a “Dance”. We practised so many times in my house, Suresh's house and college. All the practise days our teacher had been none other than Sai Kiran.The day of prelims came. All five of us thought of getting on stage. But for the benefit of our stage performance, only our front line dancer went onto stage to dance and luckily, we got through and we were allowed to make the stage performance. Lucky guys, we were sponsored “Water-Melon” by our class girls (Poor girls, so many expectations). Atleast we were happy that we made girls look at us. What else would a person have expected during his College life? We do anything to make a girl look at us during our college life. Would our dance worth their sponsor?

We frequently kept practising making few changes to the dance steps what Giddy had taught us. After those changes to steps we managed to make our dance atleast as an exercise. After many days of practice, the day had come where the stage debutants had to show their skills and prove their valour. We heard the voice of the comperer reading our team name “Pectium” to walk on to the stage to perform the dance. We went on stage and the ligts were put off except for the faint blue light. A laugh amoungst we dancers thinking about the audience (It was all their fate, who could help them. We never forced them to see our dance, a safe set of words to boost our confidence). Exactly 3 minutes went and all we 5 dancers had to come offstage. Believe me, we danced (that is how we thought). Now Thennal had taken his position on stage and he made a great show (Thank God, the only saviour). Now the dance from Sam and Prabha. What a synchronization? But the problem was the synchronization was not with the music, that was with the waving audience. All our other classmates joined on stage to dance for a music that comes in the song (Aaha, aaha). All I could remember is the dance from Chidambaran, Sekar, Moudood and PP. Wow, their steps were totally out of what was expected. Atlast for the rock song, the whole CSE department went onstage to dance for the rock song. Everyone doing their dance (infact this was better than the dance by our Panchathanthiram team). And the song finally ended up with our hero Sam sending in a flying kiss to the audience (Oops, what a hero he was!!)

Giddy, who taught us our steps should have definitely felt bad that none of the steps had suggested was there on stage and our so called minor modifications changed the whole dance. Mr. Sam has asked audience comments and one of our Juniors said that the dance was “Creative”. So the target accomplished. But somehow we become “Stage dancers”.

All these just ran through my mind within just few seconds and all I could do now is to smile and take my tovel as the water I wanted to heat was already bubbling. Just waking up and cleaning everything I had to reach my office desk, carrying only the memories.

Vow!! how good those days were!! We, the dancers. How does it hear? Atleast we had water-melons.