ICC Nite has ended! [This is a backlog, so don't mind the transitions in tenses (even I'm not sure)] It was a blast! (Like a shot from the Master Blaster!) And it's also something that I would be rather proud of.

The previous week was very @#$%^&* We were having 7-9 school days, which is like longer than office hours. This was most definetly a machination of Narilla. It was her hairy and unwelcome intrusion in our Medley, that caused us much distress,torment, frustration and fuelled our desire to kill her. She is such a fickle creature that she comes 2 days before the show and asks us to change the Medley. Like, WTF?! We were supposed to add freaking thathuvam songs which she heard when she was a little gorilla, for according to her the parents would only enjoy such songs.

But as one parent had pointed out, “99.9% of the parents today listen to contemporary songs. And 99.9% of them only want to listen to how well the children sing. As such 99.9% of them, do not care what type of songs are sung”. This is in stark contrast to the narilla school of thought. Anyway, the fact of the matter is that Narilla is a noob and that she knew nuts about anything. As a result of this unwelcome intrusion, we had to make a lot of changes last minute to the item, and as such it became super long.

The actual day was rather tension-fied. We came down to school at 9 am to start preparations, rehearsals and what not. As per IST – Narilla was expected to come at least 36 minutes late. As such, we were happy-slappily playing chapteh with some screwed up shuttlecock. And then Narilla came, and rehearsal started. And Jax was like – “Ei! Neengal ellam olungah performance pannalaenah naa show-ei cancel panniduvaen!” and what not. And that was like super zzzzz.. But the septuplet gang of the Pariparan AKA Pakir Hussain, Karikaran (who together formed the Polonial Kousins), Panikutti Paithiyanathan, Makiponna Mukesh, Mohksim, Pitch Bitch and Nustad Nalla Nakha was unfazed by the empty threats! We had gone too far to come back now. So we were busy practicing the medley and it was only on that day that we sounded decent or so I thought. Well we didn’t go off-pitch much and stuff so yeah. Then we had to go and show out item to Jax to get an OK from him. So yeah, we Vathaapied first. And then Medley-ed. Both were OK, except that the Pitch Bitch kept making mistakes, and we were like rushing due to nervousness(For medley). Pfft. So after all that crap, and copius amounts of Strepstils and lemon juice we were released for lunch and stuff.(On a side note, I had finished half a box of Strepstils by the start of our actual Medley as I was losing my friggin voice).

Time was ticking, and the show was nearing. Evidently, we were damn nervous and stuff. The wait backstage was seriously a killer man. We were like pacing endlessly waiting for the damn show to start. And start it did.

First up was Vathaapi. I was damn nervous as Nithya and I had not rehearsed much save for the 30 minutes prior to the show. And poor dude, Narilla made him wear his drama costume for the item lah. >.< But it was da bomb man! Sounded like some Zakir Hussain, Alla Rakha fusion! Haha. Solid performance. But for our (solo+duet = suet) item, my mike went on strike at the start. So I had to hit damn hard to get some sound lah. But on the whole, I felt that Vathaapi was the most error-free item of the show.

Next was dance. Ah! Dailamo! It was funky man. I don't care what anyone has to say, they rocked. Hip-hop and what not, it looked cool from backstage ah. Balu was the most natural fella there but was good in it's own right. They evidently put in alot of effort for that item. And considering that they had 36 million other commitments, it was a bomb man. Doesn't Dailamo remind you of Dynamo - the detergent. Imagine making steps to such a song....that was exactly what we did. Damn funny lah! Haha.
Next up was our Medley. I was seriously worried about this, as ICC Nite was actually our first proper rehearsal, so to speak. Haha. When I tried to look at the audience, I couldn only see the blinding spotlights lah. Dass was feeling damn nooblet as he was just playing the chords(but it was very good for 48 hours worth of work). There were minor problems like going off-pitch/key and the mangling of lyrics by Manjo(as was expected). It also went kinda long. And I felt damn noob when I had to sing the friggin Thayillaamal Naan Illai. Was bloody anti-climax lah! And I rushed through one song. But overall, it sounded good, at least to me. COnsidering we had to undergo so much shit from Narilla, I would say the Medley was a success. Screw what a certain family has to say about the Medley. We got good comments for it, and for a first-timer like me, I think I did reasonably well. At least none of us missed our part, and started smiling sheepishly. Hehe. We were filled with immense relief when the whole thing ended!

Next up was drama. It was an unintentional comedy man. The audience were laughing like crazy, especially one paricular section (which prompted Narilla to go "Yaaru rowdy-thanamaaka nadanthu koraanga?") But I thought it was entertaining nonetheless, which is supposed to be the aim of the drama. It's this small mistakes that give it a human touch. Kaikeyi was a friggin transvestite and Seethai look like a female lah! The drama on the whole was very powderful.

And that was it. ICC Nite ended just like that. And poor Kannan. He had to thank the Narilla for whatever even though she was going against us for the most part. But it's okay. On the whole, I should say ICC Nite was a success, considering the following factors. 1) The gorilla was sticking it's hair in places where it didn't belong. 2) We do not have a dedicated CCA for dance and music, and as such the preformers were just a random bunch of people. 3) We have narilla, which no one else had the misfortune of having. 4) Our core CCAs were always clashing with ICC Nite prac. But despite all these, we came out the better.

Ethu eppadi irunthaalum, I must say I will miss the rehearsals. I had much fun n the rehearsals, although I was always on the verge of losing my voice, shouting as noob Sec1s and 2s. The medley guys especially were fun people, like Prahlad the Pannikutti Paithiyanathan and Kannan the Karikaran. Our common bonding point seemed to be our collective hatred for Narilla that was growing by the minute. We had escaped being evicted by Elango-adigal's blaeke friends and a whole lot of crap. Coming to think of it, I've already begun to miss the rehearsals. Post-production blues has set in. Hmmmm. I'll always remember the funtimes!

P.S: Whoever has ICC photos (of the nite and our camps and other random photos) send them to me. Let's set up a Flickr account, and preserve the memories of our last year in RI. =D