The Krishna Leela Escapade

So today is Janamashtami.

If this was 20 years ago, I would be busy running through my lines, cramming each word and expression, trotting between my house and my neighbours house to check the costume, making multiple trips to the pandal to supervise the stage and preparations, getting all other kids together to ensure our flighty dance steps are in sync. Yes, all this at the age of 7 when the BIGGEST thing in life was becoming Krishna in the local Janamashtami celebrations (the younger version; the older/macho Krishna was always my elder brother...wonder why).

Even though Noida was a part of Delhi or UP (people conveniently choose whichever state they want Noida to belong to) the place was like a small town, growing in the shadows of a big city. It wasn’t developed, there weren’t too many sectors and there definitely was no Metro or DND. We were the early settlers (newly moved from the ever so lavish up-market Lodi Road), the place was small and everyone knew everyone. As kids, we used to cycle around the sector, play badminton, gallery and stapoo on the road, get excited with the sound of Jain tikkiwala when he used to roll his cart at 5pm to dish out fabulous tikkis and gol gappe and over excitedly greet every adult we saw with an eager “Namaste uncle or Namaste aunty” (even when it was uncalled for!)

One such evening after play, my mom (she was the MOST social and MOST active member of RWA) got all kids and parents together and made an announcement about celebrating Janamashtami. It stemmed from a basic idea of setting up a pandal in our lane (A block, Sec 15), putting up photos of Krishna and doing an aarti with prasad distribution at midnight. We decided we should invite the entire sector but this meant organizing money and the best way to do so was to collect chanda. So every day after school (10 days prior to the main day) we visited each house with our receipt book, begged people not to be stingy and asked for contribution. One thing led to another and after the huge response we got with 1st year celebrations, we wanted next year’s event to be BIGGER and BETTER.

So we (the kids) with my mom in tow put on our creative hats and started writing the script for Krishna Leela. This was BIG...this meant becoming actors = learning dialogues = costume, jewellery and dance = everyone from the sector watching us = drama = excitement = fun = stories to share in school = becoming popular as stars (we belonged to Noida, and yes were star struck and wished their kind of stardom in our own small way) = OH MY GOD, WE ARE DOING SOMETHING AWESOME!!!

We had it all planned. The money from chanda would go in set up and production, costumes would be borrowed from the local Ram Leela organizers, food would be arranged by someone’s mom, rehearsal area would be someone’s terrace and one of the girls (a local dance instructor) would teach us raas leela. But hey, we couldn’t forget bollywood! So instead of using traditional songs we used filmi numbers (We assumed, Lord Krishna being a modern age God with a colourful personality won’t mind). So while we were not mouthing our dialogues in shudh hindi, we were swaying to “natkhat bansi wale gokul ke raaje, meri aankhiyan taras gayi ab toh aaja from Saudagar, bada natakhat hai re..krishna kanihya..kya kare yashoda maiyaan from Aradhana or Madhuban mein radhika naache re...Mohan ki muraliya baaje re from Kohinoor”

Division of roles was easy and there weren’t ego clashes, we had an audition and whoever did best got the role meant for him/her (although, apart from my over enthusiastic acting abilities, I was made younger Krishna because I looked like a boy!)

Now to recap, I started with how IF it was Janamashtami, two decades ago, I would be busy preparing with butterflies in my stomach. We eagerly looked forward to the evening for lights and sound to fire up, for audiences to quickly fill the chairs and for the magic to begin (we had nearly 200 people attending and the no. increased YoY). Looking back, WE ROCKED IT!

After 1 months sweat, toil and continuous rehearsals, we had phenomenal entries planned for every rakshas appearing from within the audience and scaring their guts out (with the makeup, they aced their part), we had background music of the river Yamuna to depict Vasudeva crossing over with baby Krishna (the Krishna in hand would be a plastic doll wrapped in a dupatta) and we had a Kansa who roared his way through the play. And at the end of it, Krishna in a very ceremonious manner would kill Kansa and win everyone’s heart. (FYI – Our play started with Krishna’s birth and depicted him in his growing up years, ending with him killing his evil mama – Kansa)

The audiences LOVED us and we soon became the talk of the sector (if not the town). Every year, like the chanda our small play also grew. Of course roles were interchanged; I’ve also played a gopi with my head covered with a cap because I had given my hair in Tirupati...yes, some memories!)

Hmm...anyway, life moved on and with the Krishna Leela exposure, I later got to play a monkey’s role in Lord Ram’s vanar sena in the local Ram Leela. Their production was much bigger than ours and securing a role in Ram Leela was HUGE (Although, my brother ONCE AGAIN did better and grabbed younger Ram’s role while I was left being a monkey!)

But as years went by, my parents decided to move to the BIG city.

With such fond, fun and colourful memories we shifted base to a land where all the above could not be possible.....because what happened in Noida was one of the experiences of growing up in a small town, where one was crazy yet modest - stupid yet grounded and where one could live unabashed :)

Having said that, I don’t hate big cities - I love Mumbai, it’s given me a life beyond childhood, it’s given me a career and most importantly given me the person I want to spend rest of my life with. Although, someday I wish the younger generation from big cities get to experience the kind of fun I had growing up!