PAF 2007 - Aashayein

Yesterday night - the PAFs for the year 2007 got underway !

Hostels 3, 8 , 10 & Tansa House came together to present the 1st one - Aashayein (Hindi for 'Hopes') on 18th March , ie : yesterday.

[All IITB lingo & usages explained here]
Background:
Hostel 3 wanted to get some guilt and shame washed off - after a forgettable 'Camouflages' . The current 3rdie batch, has over the past 2 years, shown enough promise in Dram, and was raring to go. Mishra, Golu, SMS, etc. were really pitching in. Chaube, Pondy, Nana were there to help out.
Choreo has always found H3 lacking, but with freshie enthu & H10 participation, there didnt seem a likely shortage of dancers. phew !
H 10 - the UG Girls hostel - has finished 2nd both years I have been here. Clearly something that clearly doesnt go too well down with them, given that no one remembers when was the last time they actually won a PAF. Dependable for Choreo and FA work.
H 8 - Mix of good enthu seniors and talent.

OAT :
Though practice had begun much earlier - I will cut short to the hand over of OAT [Open Air Theatre] the venue.
We had OAT for 72 hrs, before performing and handing it over to next hostel pairings. Institute wide student body elections were held that night hence the there was general ruffling about. Even then, most of the prod was moved into the OAT. There were quite a handful of frames [of bamboo] that were ready, yet the major wood frame for the central backdrop was yet to be made [by an external carpenter].
Saw how the PAF was shaping up for the first time - and - it wasnt a pretty site.

Since, most of the students attended classes on a working Friday, rehearsals and work commenced only in the evening. We had the 1st run-through scheduled at night, meant that all departments had to get their act together.
Prod - fata pada tha. The stadium was only vaguely visible.
Dram - major changes were to be made. There were long scenes that werent rehearsed even once. A chopping was on the anvil. The +ve - no ego clashes and people were ready to work around this problem and get things done as well was required.
Music - Heard it for the 1st time & was damn impressive. All was live - which is incredible. To top it off, there were a couple of original scores, which were really coming off well. :)
Choreo - neat. more later.

The run-through that started at 1 pm extended to well past 330 until - it was discontinued because the subsequent scenes were not practiced, and major reshaping of the earlier pieces was required. :D
We might not end up requiring the last scenes, if the IIT crowd doesnt take a great liking to the initial scenes. :P

Work started at around noon on a hot saturday working. Mostly Prod work - since the entire cricket stadium had to be made. A great number of seniors got cracking. We were going to try an idea to use curtains to hide the entire stage while a major prod change happened during the performance. If the curtains, putched during show - it might have been curtains then and there.

We had another run through that night.
The scenes just stretched on and on. Deletions were called for. Redundancy was to be eliminated. The entire character [of numerologist Bejan Daruwalla] was dropped from the script. (Reminded me of the quack in 'Lage Raho! MunnaBhai' who couldnt predict his future successfully at gunpoint. Like wise - Daruwalla was dropped unceremoniously from the script - almost as bad a Ganguly ;) )
There was a palpable tension among the seniors / OCs since it was a distinct possibility that the PAF might , again, not end. Faces were lined with sweat and creased with tension. An emergency meeting was convened to look into what could be done to revive. No one was really hungry to geez the Maddu food, that came along.
As usual, music & dance junta came , performed satisfactorily and left.

'D'ay
18th dawned late - since anyway everyone was around till 7 am with a hangover from the previous nights morale low.

why r we dancing ...yahan pe to kuch bhi prod nahin dikh raha hai ......paf ho bhi raha hai ya nahin ???
- Choreo Team on 18th Morn

kinda sums up the feeling.
Still the prod team was reliably up early - by mid afternoon - things were distinctly looking up on the prod front.
Non-stop dram / voice over practices lent a semblance of completeness with a fresh & slim script to boot.

Another run-through later, we were finally ready to roll at 930 pm.

The 1st boost of confidence was felt after the dream choreo was pretty well received. Though irritated by the excessive and abstract choreos, the choreo was done beautifully to say the least.
I always, knew that there were good dancers in here, but this was so close that - it was almost surreal. Anshu was too good and as graceful as i have seen any dancer [after Madhuri Dixit ;) ].
Mishra was again amazingly elegant and gave a power-packed performance. Among the juniors, Vrinda, Aishwarya and a few others were mind-blowing. The thing that was most appealing was that the dancers were actually enjoying themselves, while dancing under the spotlight and it showed brilliantly. I tried to tape as much as the dance as possible, but since I had a subsequent scene - tried to get back into my elements. Even later, I was just so floored by their dances. If everyone accepts my Orkut friendship requests, I will become a fan instantly. :)

Soon - the PAF was truly underway and inspite of the occasional heckling at lengthy monologues and cliched jokes we were going to finish this thing no matter what!

The FAgiri was visibly brilliant - Haji Ali was never so beautifully captured. Pop Tates was as close to reality as it gets. Classroom walls had realistic graffiti - it said 'Pandey Rocks'!
Kudos to Jango, Shiksha and many others.

Lights held up brilliantly inspite of lack of co-ordination during earlier run throughs.
Prod shifts were quick and swift. Music was captivating and held the audience for a really long time as the curtains were closed and there wasnt any other action to hold the crowd's action. Live singing added to the beauty. Innovative use of flute as well as Mandolin was great :) Guitar was nice as well.
At one hour mark - my initial apprehension was dispelled. After another short acting stint, I was done for the night. :D
Later, the crowd was brilliant and brilliantly reactive. They actually cowered as rains came down on Eden Garden. That wasnt even practised. Their cheers really brought the punch of the match into the PAF. Sidhu is always welcome.
This part of the match, was again - loaded with choreo - yawn - eventhough the dancing was upto standards.

But as the final wicket fell - we knew we had delivered a complete PAF - winnable or not has to wait for the next 10 days, but certainly complete. Vartika's senti ended in quick time - which is important since the audience really doesnt appreciate too long fundaes, especially at the end of 1.5 hours, [which is extremely long by PAF stds.]

Thank you all !
It might not have been a Dastak - but it was far from Camouflages.
Eventhough my contribution to the PAF was at best minimal, I had no feeling of wanting to leave the OAT at the end of it.

Cheers !

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Short guide to IIT Lingo

• Lingo : Language frequently used that is not comprehendable by an outsider
• Dram : Dramatics, simple enuf
• Choreo : Choreography , or Dance
• Prod : The sets and related stuff of the production.
  
• FA : Fine Arts - painting and so on.
• enthu : enthusiam.
  
• putch : flaw in the performance.
• senti : sentimental speech

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Edit :- dated 21.3.2007

Check out PAF pics on http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/[tilde]vikram/PAF-2007/
Photographer's Request - Dont add a link to the above url - in a place - where crawlers can take over
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Edit :- dated 28.3.2007

We came 2nd in Overall Trophy & 1st in VoiceOver Trophy
Not too good [I believe we could have won] but then...
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