Junkyard

The institute OBB behind the camp that I recently attended had arranged a felicitation program. For this event some of my group members decided to do a skit which would portray the things we learnt at the camp and all the fun we had. Sir gave us precise instructions. But, we found that due to “space constraint” we will have to video shoot the whole thing. So this way, began our new adventure. Yeah, it was kind of an adventure.

One of my close friends at the camp came up with a fantastic & a comic idea for the play & we began working on the whole thing. This idea of writing the script was a really cool experience. I wrote the dialogues and the voice-over between the scenes. Though, we made lots of changes in it before finalizing.
The most wonderful experience was that of the video shooting day. This time we had a “time constraint.” We had to complete the shoot in just one day. And all the worst things that could happen to make us quit, did happen on that day.

We had to meet at 10:30 a.m. sharp at the OBB Office to collect the ruck-sacks and other things that we required for the shoot. But due to all the late-comers in the group, we reached there at around 11:30 a.m. We hastily collected all the stuff. Then the question arose as to how would we carry so much of load to our friend’s place. There were four of us and only 2 two-wheelers. The other was a bike. So I had to somehow manage to put it all on my scooter. It was pretty difficult to balance that between my two legs and drive the vehcile all the way without letting anything fall down.

After we reached the spot, we found the home locked. Our friend was at her college. We called her in desperation and she told that she is leaving and will reach there in a jiffy. We had already lost so much of time. So the other two guys said that we should wait outside the gates for our friend and they will go and bring the costumes on rent. And there we stood on the road, with a pile of rucksacks outside her home. (It looked as if someone had told us to abandon the house on a one-day notice) People moving about gave us strange looks.

After a while, I got a message from a friend which read: “The costume on-rent shop is closed. So we are going to some other place to find costumes.” We were in a fix. No costume meant No play. The so-called “other place” mentioned in the message was about 15kms away. We sat there wondering when they would return. We were again losing lots of precious time. Our hopes were dropping.

We planned to go ourselves to find some shops nearby her house. But to our bliss, that day, all shops either were closed or did not have the costumes. We came back home. We felt irritated. I suddenly got a message from this guy: “We‘ve got the costumes. We‘ll be there.” And I felt this line at that moment: “Hey ya, My joy knew no bounds!”

We began looking for the locations. Near that friend’s house is a small forest-like area. It’s really beautiful and we found it perfect for some scenes. We started deciding the locations. When we returned at her place again, we were admiring the weather and were thankful that it wasn’t all rainy that day.

By then, it was around 2:15 p.m. The guys who went to get the costumes had come back. We wasted no time in getting dressed. But by this time, little droplets of rain had began to fall down. We still thought that this was not real heavy rain and it would stop, once we reach at the forest to complete the outdoor scenes. When we left her house, people started to gather in the gardens or balcony because of our old-fashioned clothes. We made our way through it as fast as possible. We dreaded getting any further attention.

Later, when we had just entered the forest, it started raining like hell. We took a shelter of a tree. But it was useless. The rucksacks and costumes were getting wet. And we were all drenched. We were so idiots that we forgot even to take the umbrellas. We came back to her home half-walking and half-running. You can say, that then all our hopes of completing this were nearly shattered.
I was so wet that I thought why did I spend so much of time this morning ironing these clothes! I had to change in new clothes. I borrowed them from the same friend. After that every single person in her drawing room was thinking, “Why are we doing this?” All were exhausted. No one wanted to talk. I wished I had not bunked my college that day. Was this all worth it??

Just then the friend’s mom offered us tea. The tea was a treat at that moment. All drank non-hesitantly. And I should admit, that this tea thing is hot man! We decided to start working again after 15 minutes.

The rain was losing the grip. It was 3:40pm. We started the video-shoot. The process of arranging the handy cam on the stand and deciding the right-angles was cool. Everyone were excited for the first-shot. Soon we began to realize that when we watch a three-hour movie, we don’t understand why the film-makers take a year or more to complete it. We almost took 15 re-takes to complete just a 1minute scene. Every time some person busted out laughing. Well, It wasn’t their fault altogether because the dialogues that we wrote were simply hilarious. This way we started progressing.
Scene after scene, after every final take, we hi-fived and shouted. It was all fun. At around 6:30 p.m. all became terribly hungry. So some of them bought hot samosas. And we ate to the full extent. I don’t know why or how, but after eating, one gets a lot of energy to start with a new enthusiasm and spirit.

Another problem was that of the honking horns. There is so much of sound pollution in this city. I didn’t care about it before. When any shot was progressing so well, some stupid zooming car or an auto-rickshaw would blow loud horns and distract the whole scene. At other times, a cow or buffalo would make noise or a two-wheeler with no silencer would pass by. And we waited there making pathetic faces.

By 10:30pm at night, we had made it through. All were dying to do two things at that moment. 1.View the video shoot.
2. Go home and go to bed.
But, we chose the latter.

The felicitation ceremony went on very well. All our fellow camp participants (some of them had come from other cities just for a day) enjoyed the movie to the fullest. We were very proud of our work or should I say “ALL IN A DAY‘S WORK.”
I agree that getting medal or a certificate as a topper in academics is cool and great. But, the joy of doing something without any reason, seeing people enjoying and appreciating our work, when we are the showmen is even greater. It’s truly worth experiencing. (and yes truly worth bunking one day at the college.)