A Musical Bonanza...

Blogger's Note: This is a special blog, written on request! Hope you like it! though it's more about Rodrigues House than anything else!

The most awaited event of the year for all FAPSians in the inter-house Music Competition. This is so for a number of reasons, the most obvious of these being the fact that it is the last inter house event of both, the calendar year and the academic year, and the 10ths and 12ths have only Prelims to look forward too after this. For the others, the third term is a very boring uneventful term compared to the 2nd so we enjoy this event to the max! For me, music competition has always had special significance, because I love music in any form! Having taken part everyyear since my 6th standard, i was more than familiar with the procedure of preparation for this event. This year was a little more special for me in two ways, being Vice Captain for Music along with Tarini, we had a role to play in organizing the whole thing along with the Music Captains and NS, ofcourse! Also, this year Rodrigues house was more or less in the hands of Prashanthi and me, our captains, being very busy with their Phy projects and the likes.
The competition was scheduled for 14th December, 2007, a mere 7 days after the last day of our Second Term exams, that ended on 7th Dec. Ah! that week of preparation is always full of tension, ego-clashes, sparks and if we're unlucky, spats and tears. The first few days are never hectic, we all imagine that we have more than enough time to complete our preparations. So the weekend passed with little or no practice, except for D'mello House who were very clever and very dedicated! Come monday, the tension began to build. Our first priority was getting good singers, and we hadn't even been able to hold proper selections. So we spent some time on making sure that our singer weren't tone deaf! Then we had to choose a song for the 'Indian' category, which proved to be a very cumbersome and time-consuming task. After we came to the conclusion that most of the Rodrigues House guys could not sing really well, we figured that we might as well pick some really simple song and try and jazz it up a bit! So we decided on "Koi Mil Gaya" from Kuch kuch Hota Hai, much to the amazement of the other houses. I'm sure they laughed at the folly of our choice!!
Our carol was not much of a problem. Having Amodh on our side, we figured some traditional carol would sound best, but our bright idea was scorned at by sir... He gave us a carol - "Torches", something no one had heard of before. In theory, a very simple piece. Without Prashanthi singing alto though, we would never have had a chance! Now came the question of Western. We should have been smart like Corbett house and picked something that we knew, and we could teach. "Lookin out my back door" was the piece assigned to us, a mere 2 days before D-Day. With much difficulty, we learnt all the songs. Unfortunately one very imp detail that we forgot to consider, was costumes! We finalized the costumes only the day before 14th!
In between all of this, we had to take selections for Open Event. The very fact that we had to take selections for an "open" event makes it clear how much of competition there is for this particular category. There were 30 aspirants of which we were allowed to choose only 6. It wasn't easy. And although we were completely fair, it was most of our friends that got selected. Well! we cant help it if our friends were the best singers in school! After much deliberation and debate, we settled on the final 6. 2 of them, clearly stood out, but one refused to sing, because she did not have the minus 1 track!
The big day dawned cloudy and cold, and we were expected to be in school before7:30 am! We didnt get much done in the morning, Rodrigues house had just one practice. I'm not really sure about the other houses, because I spent most of my time writing out the scoresheets (the order of houses) in the Music Room. The Trophies, fresh out of being polished, looked brand new and had an amazing silver shine!
The competetion, scheduled to start at 9:30, began very late, at about 10:15 if I remember right! Anna gave the opening speech, well, a little too fast. But you can't blame her, she was nervous. We had a very special guest with us, former head girl of FAPS, actor (Chak-de India), Anaitha Nair. Nope, no snobbishness around her, she was just your typical FAPSian, as Zubin put it very rightly, a little later!
The order of Houses was as follows, Gidney, D'mello, Corbett and Rodrgues - going by the order in which we all placed the previous year. As tradition holds, we began with the junior school groups singing two carols each, trained by their teachers, Mr.Daunt and Mr.Fabian. NS was giving what we called "a running commentory" between houses. The comperes did a great job as usual, with Shane and Jolly Jr entertaining everyone for Rodrigues House. Smrithi and Krishna, for Corbett, but Zubin and Naquia did a little bit just before the junior school part! Maggu and BD for Gidney; and Khanna and Pooja for D'mello.
Indian Solo followed this. With Soda representing Gidney, DK representing D'mello, a 10th std girl who's name i didnt get representing Corbett. And a sweet little 8th std girl representing Rodrigues!
Indian Group turned out to be very interesting, with Gidney screwing up pitch majorly and then getting back on track, D'mello lacking a bit life, Rodriuges totally dead, and Corbett simply amazing!
Western Solo - Taru Vijay for Gidney, Jyotsna for D'mello, Jennie for Corbett, Shane for Rodrigues.
Western Group, nothing much different here. Gidney wasnt bad actually! acc to reports, cos I didnt here them. D'mello was great, Corbett even better and us - well, I'd rather not talk about it. I wouldn't know where to start, with the horrible tempo change, or the even more horrible Altos.
Carol, i think, was the best category for the houses. Rodrigues wasn't bad at all, Gidney - didnt hear them :( D'mello was great, but Corbett blew the crowd away! and all of us too. They were unbelievable!!
Open event - most awaited!! Grace and Dileep - didnt hear them :( Tara, with a lil voice training, she's the next Madhuri... amazing! except for a few notes, but that was cos of her cold. Zubin - wow! but not as amzing as selections - there he really shocked me! never knew he could sing so well!! Dominic - the finale... we sure saved the best for the last! creme de la creme! i swear.. what a voice. Still a little trouble jumping octaves, but anyone'll have trouble with that. He was brilliant.
Vote of Thanks - moi!
Prize Distribution - aah! Corbett took like a clean sweep... except Indian solo. Everything else was theirs. Prizes were given out by Anaitha, with Mr.Boye reading the results. As usual he made a little "mistake". "2nd place goes to Rodrigues House" cheering in the crowd, but a little muffled. becasue of shock, " OH! I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I read the wrong heading.. It goes to D'mello House"!! anyway...

As tradition holds, we went to Corner House after much time-wasting and celebrating in school. And as we were leaving, the 12ths entered!

Oh! It was Ramya Mallya's birthday, and the 12thies did their special birthday song thing!!

There are plans brewing for another fun day out! hopefully, it'll be as great as we hope!!