Went to prometh's annual day celebrations on tuesday, jan 31 at jagmohan palace hall, mysore. After a long long time I was in such a place. As usual paens, praise ( flattery) were heaped on the guests. They stopped short of an elegy or a panagyric simply coz no one had the talent for those esoteric things I guess. Then every chief guest, there were plenty of them, extolled the virtues of the school and then launched into their own monotonous drone. What struck me was the absence of wit and humor in their speeches. Prizes were distributed to all the kids and some were there in the costumes which added color and glamor. The cheruby kids were a delight to watch just not caring two hoots for stage etiquette and behaving their own self in absolute nonchalance. Prometh came in and gave a shy and solemn bow after getting a certificate for a prize. I was sitting in the first row with my behemoth of a handycam positioning myself at all sorts of angles to get a clear view which were often blocked by someone or the other suddenly appearing in front me like a ghost with a gizmo in their hand. Them poms as usual started going near the electrical guy and the sound mixer guy and wanted to take it apart.

The cultural show started and it was a beautiful spectacle. The tiny tots in all their angelic and cherubic innocence swaying hither and thither, with gay abandon and past caring for any rhythm and discipline. The solo show was superb, a small kid calm recited a poem, cracked a few jokes with cool and elan that would put a few of us to shame. The dances for the songs were really enojoyable even though a boys was battling with his garment, which was bent to obey the newtonian gravity. He did it with remarkable adroitness and adeptness that I had no other choice to marvel. Deepu started getting calls and finally I told him to pack off for a movie. Then poms choir singing came and needless to say he was the odd note. Probably he was looking for me but I had gone to the other side to get him into the frame of my handycam ( not handy at all) and he was there swinging his hands and murmuring something. It was over in a trice.

Then Poms cooly wandered sipping a bottle of water into the stage where a drama was going on and one of the characters had to push him off the stage. But he still stood at the steps uncaring and not bothering about anything in the world and shaking his water bottle. Then he sat down and stared gazing at the sound mixing unit there.

To round off the function they had a superb pyrotechnic display. Nice to watch the crackers shooting up the sky, bursting and then bathing the night sky with a spectacular display of fireworks. The lights shooting in a myriad directions of varioud hues. Some of them did a bit of crazy somersaults also. Some glowed in all its resplendence, some twinkled, some sparkled, some coruscated and some scintillated - but all fizzled on their lazy trip back to earth, reduced to embers.