Voice over

So, back to the Kala Ghoda (mini) Festival…

It was a long evening and my feet hurt. But somehow the adrenaline had taken over and I could not feel anything (no, not even my aching feet, unless I thought about them) beyond the humid warmth of the evening and the beat of the music pounding somewhere deep inside me. I had run up and down the high stairs of the amphitheatre so many times that I could do it with my eyes closed (and me with fairly severe vertigo, too!), and knew my script for the compeering stint I was doing almost by heart, allowing for an occasional pause for a comma or to swallow a cough. Once in my car for the drive back home, I could feel the entire sequence of events go through me, from the moment I started getting dressed at home to the time I walked to the car after a nice dinner and a hug from a close friend I had dined with. And somehow it all ended up at my feet, which throbbed in parts and reveled in the highness and sharpness of my heels in others.

The fashion show was to be at 7 pm that evening. At 3, when I was leaving my home to drive into town, I was vaguely sleepy and not sure I wanted to get into whatever I had got into. But having got into it, I had to honour my commitment and stay with the programme. The ride was punctuated by regular calls from the store I was helping with the show, asking where I was with rising levels of hysteria with each conversation. Finally, I was there and bounced happily up the stairs that I have a tendency to fall up and in through the glass door, to be greeted in various pitches by various people in various degrees of panic. There was a rehearsal in progress, with many of the models not sure where they should be, which side they should face and what their next move should be. Some were in advances stages of makeup, with strangely ghostly faces glowing pink and beige, unlike anything real and human. Under the arc-lights they would look very pretty, but in the afternoon sun filtering through the windows of the space, they seemed like visitors from another planet.

I played Mother Hen quite happily. One girl was almost in tears because of something the manager had said the previous night. Another had no idea what to do after she had finished the second turn and was forgetting how she got to where she was standing every time the choreographer yelled at her for being there two beats too long. Two of them looked so grim that they could have fit right in at a retrenchment meeting , while a couple of others stood morosely around wondering when they would get something to eat. I wandered about wondering what I was doing there, but oddly enough enjoying the chaos; it was like the days when I danced on stage, and spent many moments feeling like the only oasis of calm and sanity in a world that was rapidly descending into hell flavoured by hysterics.

Finally, the show began. In the sound box at the very top of the amphitheatre I was positioned just behind and to the right of the sound engineer, my fingers ready to tap him on the shoulder every time I wanted the music turned down. The other hand multitasked – holding on to my script, waiting to tap the light-man on HIS shoulder when I needed the spotlight on or off and the stage in darkness, hanging on to my purse that dangled from arm and holding on to the rail to keep my head from spinning itself off my neck at such a steep height away from street level. My slippers were off and placed neatly on the step behind me, my bare soles feeling every tiny pebble under them as I stood there. The dance performance in progress on the stage ended, applause crashed out echoes against the stone blocks of the amphitheatre and I got my cue…

The commentary went smoothly. I managed not to stumble over my carefully crafted words, no cough burst into my sentences and everything worked as it should have, even with an unexpected demand from backstage to keep talking since the girls were not ready for the next sequence. One set of garments gave way to the next, each segueing neatly into the other. There were, of course, glitches – one girl went in the wrong direction after a central turn, leaving her partner standing on one leg for a small moment, not sure where to walk to. Two of the girls collided gently somewhere in the middle, but recovered fast and continued their sashay along their designated paths. And a model-designer finished her sequence with incredible sangfroid and professionalism even as her husband collapsed in the audience with a serious health problem.

As soon as it was over, I thanked my new-found friends in the sound box and bounced down the stairs, bag in one hand and slippers in the other. Once on the road, I put on my heels and ran – the pain was not being felt yet – across to the greenroom to check on the girls. They were ecstatic, laughing and exclaiming at their success. I was hugged by the store owner, the manager, the choreographer, the models…perhaps even by an unknown gentleman who seemed very happy to be part of the group, no matter who he was and what he was doing there. It had been a long day, and I would probably regret parts of it when I had time to think about it all, but for that moment, I was pleased with life. It was time to meet my friend, get my hug and giggle over a quick dinner….