A Night to Remember

It's that time of year again, when music is in the air, happiness in the heart and all the sweaters and blankets have come out of the dusty closets! Yep, it's Winter. It's Christmas time. To any FAPS band senior member its means just one thing... "Carolling". The night of the 21st was the appointed day, 3 pm the appointed hour (to be in school), though in true band style, everyone was assembled by 4! The "Merry Carollers", as Taru Vijay put it, consisted of - NS and Mr.Meakin; Anil, Deepak and Kavya on the Trumpet; Arkal on the Cornet; Mohini and Indu on the Trombone; Tarini Srinivas (Tarini) and Tarini Vijay (Taru) on the Euphonium; Arvind on the Tuba. Our first stop was Little Sisters of The Poor, Home for the aged. We played in the dining hall, just before they ate their dinner. We played the usual Christmas Carols - "Jingle Bells", "Joy to the World" ........ "Silent Night" and of course, "We wish You a merry christmas". Anil and Mohini had a sudden fixation for Silent Night (I really dont know why)!! Taru was asked to give a speech, that became a standard line as we went from house to house. She said, ' on behalf of the Frank Anthony Puublic School, we would like to wish you a merry christmas and a very happy new year, and wish to see you next year'. Instead of saying "we look forward to seeing you next year" Taru said, "we wish (or hope) to see you next year" which does not have very nice implications in an Old Age Home! Ofcourse, with NS, Mr.Meakin and Anil and Arkal around, nothing was gonna be forgotten! Instantaneously they pounced on her and started laughing!
Next stop, Mr.Boye's house. There after playing, we got our first wine, after Apple juice and 'kalkal's and Rose cookies. There, Taru said, "On behalf of the Frank Anthony Public School...", although even Mr. and Mrs. Boye are a part of the school!! :P
We then stopped over at Mrs.Ramachandran's (Mrs.Nair) house - Ranka Court. Ginger biscuits were the treat there. The whole family listened in, and Roshan was the main subject of discussion!
Mrs.Cabral's House - Adorable Mrs.Cabral was as sweet as ever. 'Kalkal's here too. and Ginger wine, that was really good, a little throat burning types but really good! Plum cake for everyone.
Mohini's House - Wine, Punch, amazing Bread Rolls, chips. And lots of really cute pics of the family with Santa Hats on, including their Grandad.
Jennie's House - Cake (that had been specially bought for us), and chips and soft drinks. It was treat in itself to see Jen, Jo and Jessie. Poor Jo is really sick with some Viral infection, and has been for more than 3 weeks. There wqas no current, so we were going to play by candlelight, but it was too dim to read our music, so Mr.Meakin held up this emergency light thing for us to play by.
Somerset Apartments:
Ramya Mallya's House - wine, chocolates and food that we couldnt eat because we were all a lil full already!
Some party - we played to a crowd of about 25 who were gathered in one house for a party, including Sherwin, Christopher and Pranoy. They even sang along with whatever carols they knew. Plum cake
Akshara's House - (Her room is really really really amazing, the best i've ever seen!). We played carols, and then Aks took Taru's Euph and played with us. We played Short Episodes, messed it up a lot, but still had fun with it! We then ate lot of pizza, had a lil Sprite and Coke and a few good Guyllian chocolates. (yum!) It was i think about 12 by now... the time is very fuzzy cos i was having too much fun!! :P A lil misundertanding took place, but what's carolling, without controversy!!
Mr.Meakin's Sister's House - Jamun Wine! Plum cake. A very very cute baby girl - "Joanne". Mr.Meakin's niece. We spent maximum time here because NS was having such a great time.
Mikhail's House - Wine, soft drinks, Liquo (pron, Likyo) - some kind of drink that we found out after drinking it conc, that it shud be drunk with something! Mo got a litte "head-spinny" on it!! good cake too. There was dog there that would just not keep its paws off Tarini. It was hilarious, she was stalked by the dog!! We found out there that we couldnt go to Amrita's or Tara's because both were asleep.
Arpana's House - At 2 am we reached Arpana Alexander's house. They were all sleeping. Tarini was supposed to have called to wake her, and though she called, no one answered, because, as we found out later, Arpana had put the phone on silent instead of loud! Arpana played with Tarini on Taru's Euph. Some homemade Christmas delicacies!
Anna's House - Anna's brother was too fast asleep to get up even for the loud music of the band! Anna didnt play with us, she just stood and enjoyed! Awesome food - little pieces of bread with amazing toppings on them, like pizza flavoured. (I ate so much of it!!)
Smrithi's House - The last house on our agenda. We reached at 4 am. Manu was there too, which was a surprise for us, especially pleasant for Arvind! We got these awesome cutlets, for veggies. They were lovely. And Smrithi's room was really cute... purple walls and yellow cupboard door, and so many medals, and a really cute collage of nice pics!!

From there we dropped off, Mo and Taru; Arkal; Deepak; Tarini; went back to school dropped off all the stuff, Arvind walked; Anil; Indu; and last Me. Mr.Meakin then dropped NS off at a place where he could pic up an auto, and went home.

In the van throughout, the girls sang as much as we possibly could, and the guys just laughed!!

What a night... It was one-of-a-kind!