• Eat breakfast at the clubhouse since they were providing the cuisine for the next five days. (yay!) • Do dance practice at the stage. • Go to my friend’s house to watch a horror movie. • Go back to our house, wear a nice dress then eat at the clubhouse again. • Go take a nap and THEN • Get our makeup done. We went to sleep peacefully that day. Finally it was Shasti evening. I was freaking out. If I wasn’t levitating because of excitement then I probably don’t remember what I was doing at all. My friends and I did everything on the list we created the day before. We were supposed to be cheerful! The sun was setting, turning the sky turn into a gorgeous purple hue. The lights hanging over the complex turned on, making it look like the stars were floating just above our heads. But oh gosh were we panicking. We barely had half an hour left before the dance. We tried to practice our moves but we didn’t get a chance to do that. We kept on getting rushed to do THIS eyeliner and THAT hairdo and try on THIS piece of jewellery and THAT nail polish. It was crazy. Me, my friends, some other aunties, a makeup artist and a very tensed dance mentor were all crammed in the tower 6 apartment. We were fussing a lot. Everybody had hot tempers and there was a lot of shouting. A lot of us were about to cry out with tension, but mascara is too precious. Finally we had to get out on the stage. My legs felt heavy as sacks of lead. I barely managed to walk. Someone inside me whispered - I can NOT mess up the dance. Finally we were on the stage. I did pretty well so did everyone else. My saree, the makeup and the trident (*smirk*) were getting a lot of attention. Everyone said I looked beautiful. My friends and I planned to celebrate after the dance; but we were just too tired to celebrate. So after the dance, we laughed, said our goodbyes and promised we’d eat breakfast together next morning. Upahaar 2020 38
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