Ballet, hunger, and cheers
I was just as excited to be going for the ballet performance as the kids were and was really looking forward to it. Even the kids who weren’t eligible obviously caught the excitement and wanted to go. There was a lot of begging, screaming, crying and an inexplicable increase in the bus line. After a lot of consoling and some “Akka I’m actually 10 years old”, we finally boarded the bus (with no extras). There I was told of a murder that recently took place and how the body was found. Everybody had a slightly different version, but they all agreed that nobody knows who did it, or why it was done.
I spent the rest of the journey just sitting and talking to the other kids. When we reached the auditorium, many kids informed me that they had been here previously to watch Dr. Abdul Kalam deliver a speech. When we got inside they were very excited to see the performance. Many of them were awestruck by the dancers on their toes (they asked me if they were “real people”, it was very cute),much like I was, as it’s always been a dream of mine to learn ballet.
Since there was no dialogue as such, many didn’t understand the story so I explained it to them. The ones who knew the story of Cinderella made their own inferences. Just before the interval, the hunger bug caught the kids. Many lost interest in the play and got really distracted. When the program finally ended, they cheered loudly, though I’m not sure if it was because they genuinely had a lot of fun, or if it was because they were finally leaving…
— Ahalya Acharya