Guffaws!

While in school, we had this music group, and one of the songs we were rehearsing to sing for the FM radio in Dubai was the old-“jaago mohan pyaare” from the movie “Jaagte Raho”- well after the first and the 2nd stanzas each there was a small humming bit, but after the 3rd stanza the humming was replaced by the flute…so whenever we reached the bit after the 3rd stanza, our sir- Mr. Sen would mouth soundlessly-indicating to us that we had to keep mum- and invariably every time this bit came one of us would erupt into giggles morphing into guffaws. The Sir was quite nervous whether we would repeat our guffaw bit instead of the flute at the recording studio( it was a live program) , but we barely managed to scrape through without calamity! We had resolved not to look at one another during the recording…but the guffaws did come- after the microphones were removed!

And while in college, I used to entertain my classmates with imitations of yesteryear actresses in Malayalam- - and I was called “Malayalam drama company” fondly by my admiring classmates - Had no further acting experience that is if you left out the daily incidents of feigning illness, innocence- as the requirement may be- to your hostel warden( when one skipped the boring assembly) .

Well, back to the story- yeah, so one of my fans-oops- classmate was chosen to play the role of “KaRuthhamma” from “Chemmeen” - by late Thakazhi- in a 5 minute extract for the College function to be attended by the author himself- and guess what she did- seems they were looking out for “KaRthyaayani” from the book “eNnippadikaL”( meaning –stairs”) – again written by the same author. And my friendly classmate suggested MY name!! I was aghast but could not back out- Its another story that I went along to enjoy the experience and discovered that I loved to act on stage- still grateful to that friend who was responsible for this episode in my life!

Yes, so in this enactment of the story- KaRthyaayani had to say to her husband-
“NammaLude moLude thalakkuRi pannikkar thaNNittundu”
( the astrologer has given the horoscope of our daughter)

and during the rehearsals- I slipped on the “thalakkuRi” bit and said “bhagyakkuRi” which meant Lottery ticket!
And yes- the inevitable followed- everytime this dialogue was around the corner, my “husband” ( another girl) and me would explode into not gentle giggles but explosive guffaws- but thankfully on the Dday- we were too nervous to laugh and everything went smoothly without a hitch- or the great author would have had a heart attack!

Acted in a couple of dramas more during my college life- one role was that of a “ghost” speaking to her mother after her suicide-the character I essayed had become a drug addict because of gross neglect by her too busy parents. I had to leave my hair loose and wear white sari- and I still r’member one Miss taunting me- Ardra- you don’t have to wear make up for this role eh? – alluding to my Dracula tooth…grrrr…but then Moushmi Chatterjee, Shashi Kapoor all look so good with that tooth! Yeah, so you know what I’m trying to say…

My glorious career as an actress came to an end when they asked me to scream, moan and groan for a radio drama- the character was supposed to be in labour! Needless to say, I backed out…did not want to risk erupting into explosive Guffaws…