When children are asked the question, “What do you want to become when you grow up?”, their answers are never the same. Like butterflies, they hop and fly from one choice to another. And there are events that actually fulfil their myriad wishes– Fancy Dress Competitions! Additionally, these are also the rare instances where parents have no objection when their kids become actors, superheroes, political leaders, astronaut, model, fruit-seller, farmer, Don, Gabbar Singh, John Cena, Bahubali, Sonpari, Messi, Sania Mirza, etc. Complete freedom of choice is granted!

My experiences of being a part of such Fancy Dress competitions are undoubtedly one of the most vivid memories of my childhood. The reason being that these events were taken quite seriously by my mother and her friend. The annual Fancy Dress Competition, held at Amar Samruddhi Co-op Housing Society’s Ganesh Festival, was a platform for these two quirky ladies to display their creativity and jugaad. I was indeed the subject of those creative experiments (later my younger sister).

I was 9 years old during the maiden participation and my suggestions appeared  too conventional to my mother. She decided to take charge and discussed it with her friend. I found them ready and super excited with their idea when I came back from school. I was going to be dressed up as Shakuntala! I stood there in bewilderment with zero knowledge about this name and person. Even after the description and information they provided, I was highly sceptical about the idea. Knee-length draped white saree, white tube blouse, long hair extension covering my boy-cut and flower garlands adorning the hair, my neck, wrists and ankles. I was already imagining the chuckles, giggles and howls of my friends making fun of me.

I entered the pageant with a rabble of butterflies in my stomach and enacted what I was trained to do– calling out to King Dushyant in the sweetest voice possible! The reaction to my performance was the one that I hardly expected. Of course there were some giggles and chuckles but amazement had overpowered the audience. Initially people did not recognise me and when they did they were quite amazed with the idea. I won the first prize! I was surprised as well as happy since I had a prize to brag about the entire year.

However, emboldened by the feat, my creative designers came up with another off-beat idea the following year– a tribal woman attire. Earthy-tone coloured, knee-length draped saree, tube blouse, kajal dots near the corner of my eyes, on the chin and floral plus leafy adornments. The ‘choreographed’ enactment was a tribal dance with pop-culture tribal song “jingalala hu”. First prize again!

The following year, residents of Amar Samruddhi Co-op Housing Society were all the more excited for my performance. And without any doubt my creative designers had a befitting plan that also included a debut performance of my six years younger sister. My fragile, tiny sister was made into a Sadhu– kesariya attire with white cotton beard, moustache and hair. I was made a Rakshas– old, ragged black, knee-length skirt, bright multi-coloured top, face painted with black and white stripes and my neck-length, curly, frizzy hair left open. A truly scary Rakshas! The plot was that the Rakshas would disrupt the Sadhu’s yagya with terrifying sounds and harass & abduct the tiny, fragile Sadhu. The audience was frightened and amused at the same time. And lo, it was a hat-trick of first prize!

None of the above looks portrayed my fantasies of what I wished to become while growing up, but my designers had grasped the essence of what was “fancy dress” and their out-of-the-box, frugal-resources based ideas were successively appreciated and rewarded. My record in the competition remains unbroken to date, thanks to my mother and her dear friend Shinde Kaku! I also realised later that my mind’s inclination towards off-beat ideas in various strides at school and college performances (speech, debate, events, etc), actually stems from these episodes of innovation!