It’s a wonderful life – an adaptation.

Last week, I watched the movie ‘It’s a wonderful life’. We have a movie club at office, which screens movies every Thursday. I had heard a lot about this movie and so when I heard they were screening it at office, I wasn’t going to miss it. It’s a nice movie with a simple plot - too simple I would say. But it’s quite an inspiring movie, and somehow it strikes a chord. But although I had never seen this movie before, I had a sense of Déjà vu.

Only then did I remember something that happened a long while back – so long that I had almost forgotten. I was in the twelfth standard and we were just done with our half-yearly exams. The cultural season was just beginning and we all were pretty excited about it. Not that I was planning to participate in a lot of events, but importantly this meant we would be having a lot of free hours. I thought this was the right time to expose my talents (or whatever little I thought I had). And so I gave my name for the dramatics event, not knowing what I was getting into.

It was a lot of fun initially. And afterwards, with just a week to go, it didn’t seem like a lot of fun after all. We had not even decided on the script and the other teams were doing quite okay. And then I thought of this idea of a man, completely frustrated with life and who then commits suicide. After his death he lands in Heaven, where ‘Yama’ shows him ‘Heaven vision (or something of that sort)’ – which allows him to see what’s happening to the people on earth whom he thought didn’t really care for him. After seeing the impact that he had on their lives, he begs to be given a second chance. Simple story, right, so not much can go wrong, huh?? Or so we thought…

On the day of the event, we came all prepared, and as fate would have it we were the first team on stage. Alas, last minute panic stuck. The boy who was supposed to cross-dress (a combined team of boys and girls was not viewed favourably in our school) as Rose from ‘The Titanic’ just could not find the right costume, and so he had to make do with a nightgown on stage. Not a very pleasing sight that – me romancing with a guy in a nightgown and giving a lot of cheesy lines. But that was just the beginning. Our story required us to talk while in motion. Unfortunately there was just a single mike on stage and as a result, we had to stop, deliver a dialogue and then move on. Ok, so we’ve had our share of bad luck… time for something good to be happening… Apparently not. In a scene where the phone rings, we had a person backstage playing the phone ringing on the keyboard. (mobile phones were not all that common in those days and none of us had one). And then just as I’m expecting to hear the phone sound, and about to pick up the handset, I hear an ambulance for a full 3 minutes (fancy ring tones were also unheard of in those days). Oh, how I wish I was not the person holding the phone. The last few scenes after that are still a blur.

We ended up as the fourth best team (I guess it wouldn’t be necessary to tell you that there were only four participating teams). The actor who had cross dressed as a woman, could not find his pants and had to be in the night gown for quite a while. Talk about adding insult to injury. Well, for the positives, the audience was quite appreciative of my changing clothes for a scene very quickly. And this play will always give me something to laugh about when I think back.

‘All the world’s a stage’