School Annual Day

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Season of festivities. Season of school Annual days.Season of aggressive mothers. Mumbai gets festive around Janmashtmi. By Ganpati, we are completely into celebrations. Before this there are a few bomb blasts and stuff like that. We are into exams and life goes on. The annual day of the school is the day to see your child on stage. All schools have it. Some for one day and some for four five days. Parents and corporates pay the sponsorship money and then parents have to buy tickets for the show, pay for the uniforms, not to mention the rehearsals pick up n drops. Practically all schools have the same pattern. I am always amazed how working parents manage it. The schools have no consideration for that. They operate on the premise that most Moms are housewives. Some cook and keep home while others gym n keep home. All moms have one child in one school. A mother having two or three kids, God help her. The children who are in plays are always in plays and the ones who dance continue dancing till they are in their tenth standard. The whole event is handled by a professionally managed company. There is a video shot of the school kids in an innovative way which is shown in the begining or the end of the show. Moms really dress up for the show. They get their hair and makeup done and are in skimpiest of clothes. All parents look so hot and so excited. All cameras and cell phones are on while the child is performing. Cheers are for the best dancer kid always. SOngs without fail are filmy and girl studentsa are in skimpy clothes. All students are sent on stage which also means each parent gets a chance to watch their child perform.
As a child in my school in Dighwadih, I never got to participate in the annual day. There was never any role for me. We, at school, always started with Rabindra Sangeet, there would be one song for the nation, a classical dance to Anand Shankar s music, a folk song and dance, a nice poem recited, a good speech given, a Shakespeare s play perfomance and a humorous play written by the teachers. Music was in a tape recorder held near the microphone. Clothes were from the school closet. No two girls wore the same sari even in a group dance. Even the white and red Kolkata sari which students wore were unique. So much was so unique. No mass production in those days.We who did not get to participate, got to watch the dress rehearsals. We were very happy with that.

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