Valentine’s Day 2009 – A Story of Tragedy

No, the day itself wasn’t a tragedy. My Valentine’s Day 2009 was spent at a drama theatre applying makeup for the cast of a drama before watching the drama, which was of the genre of tragedy. The story was an excerpt from the Karnabharam, and focused on a few pivotal events in the life of Karna.

He was an illegimate child born of a virgin, descended from the Sun God. And following the usual Indian melodrama, he was semi-adopted into a clan of evil guys, and he ended up supporting them in an epic war (why is it never a small scuffle? How come everyone goes to war to settle ego problems?) against his half-brothers. And his virgin mother (who abandoned him by the way) asks him not to harm his brothers, effectively sentencing him to death since he was going to fight a war, not have a boardroom meeting. He dies. The End.

I felt that the drama had too much of a sober tone. Yes it’s a tragedy, but it also has alot of action in terms of face-offs and wars. I think if two extra scenes had been included, the drama would have achieved its aim of bringing across the valour of Karna.

1. The scene where Karna challenges Arjuna and is shamed by the royal advisors that a man of questionable birth cannot challenge on of royal birth. It would have shown the circumstances in which Duryodhana saved the face of Karna, a complete stranger. It would have shown that Duryodhana was doing this in order to embarass the Pandavas, but Karna viewed it as a selfless action, prompting him to devote his loyalty to Duryodhana.

2. The scene during the war where Arjuna and Karna fight and Karna is dying on the battlefield. It would have made the death of Karna more poignant rather than just showing him going to war and then being dead on the battlefield in the next scene.

I also felt that the voice modulation and enunciation of the actors could have been more polished. Often, the dialogues were spoken with weird modulations that ended up “swallowing” the words and leaving the audience in doubt as to what was actually said.

However, it was definitely a good attempt for their first out-of-school production, given the serious lack of manpower faced by the team. Hopefully next year’s production will draw more people to be part of the cast and crew and give ICS a chance to work with the necessary manpower.

Indian Bridal Packages

Recently, I did my rounds of the top few Indian beauty parlours to find out the going rate for their basic bridal packages. And boy was I shocked. Complete rip-offs. Here are some of the prices for a package with makeup, hairdo, use of basic accessories and saree-tying:

Entrepreneur Value-add Bigshot Hooha R – $500
Direct Rival with Freaky Namecard S – $450
80’s Old is Still Gold M – $450

If you want the latest accessories, there is an additional charge. You need to pay seperately for a trial too, anywhere from $50 to $80.

So all in all, if you want a proper package inclusive of trial, it’s going to cost between $490 to $580. Unbelievable. That’s 5% of my entire wedding budget. It’s going to cost me more than my wedding saree to do my makeup and hair.

These people KNOW you need someone who can tie a saree quickly in a cramped area, and they KNOW your usual candidates for the job will be busy running around carrying platters and cajoling relatives. With this knowledge, they happily charge a rate that works out to about $100 an hour (if they are with you from 5am to 10am or 4pm to 9pm). That makes them better paid than most upper management!

This is one of those things that make me wish it was physically possible to take my head off my shoulders and put it down on a table and do my own hair. I can do everyone’s, but I can’t do my own perfectly without being able to see the back of my head can I??? Though not for a lack of trying. I’m still attempting to devise a way to perfect it. I’ll let you know when I’m done.

Just Because.

There’s no lack of talk about the nightmares of a bride-to-be. I thought it might be interesting to write all my experiences down, just to have a laugh when I’m on the other side. Also to have a place to gripe about it all when I’m going through it.