Pratyush 2010

A feeling of déjà vu is settling into me as I proudly announce another triumph, another feather, a rather bigger feather in our cap! Yes, we have done it all over again; the verdict is out that Pratyush 2010 is a SUPER DUPER BUMPER HIT!
June 6, 2009, witnessed the beginning of a new rising – Pratyush (as the name suggests). Pratyush’09 was the first show of its kind organized in our community. With approx. 70+ participants, a meticulous and professional choreographer like Vishwas Natekar, a talented director like Pooja Ajinkya and a tremendously enthusiastic team of Yuva Manch, we knew we had a winner in our hands! We just could not go wrong with our formula and of course we didn’t! Pratyush’09 still goes down in the history of Pathare Prabhu’s as the first ever mega event organized within the community! We had marked our arrival and we were here to stay!
But history is witness to this fact that such magic can rarely be repeated! As we all know there can never be another movie like SHOLAY, we were aware of the pressure of recreating Pratyush. Expectations were soaring high and we would not accept faltering on these expectations! We were determined to defy history this time! From the time we started conceptualizing Pratyush 2010 till the final execution we all knew at the back of our minds somewhere deep down inside, that we had to excel our past performance. We had the whole community eyeing us to know what we do next and we had to live up to all your expectations!
After six months of ground work and planning for the event, and one and a half month of rigorous rehearsals, the day had finally dawned, June 05, 2010. We all gathered at the auditorium at 8.30 a.m. in the morning to conduct a final round of grand rehearsal. Soon the stage was ablaze with glittering lights and the backstage was buzzing with all the performers queuing up for their performances. All participants lined up for their make-up, our director Mr. Satish Joshi and choreographer Mr. Vishwas Natekar performed a quick ‘puja’ on the stage, gave us their blessings and then it was SHOWTIME!
The curtains rose to a packed auditorium! As soon as the audio-visual flashed the thundering sound of claps filled the auditorium and we could sense a slight feeling of victory nudging us already then, but we resisted the temptation of allowing it to take over our minds. Pratyush 2010, presented a story of two Pathare Prabhu families portrayed by some of the talented members of our community, well woven with dance performances that entwined the complete story. The story had all the ingredients of a typical ‘bollywood masala’ flick. Comedy, drama, action, romance, tragedy, you name it and it was all there! This musical drama had an array of dance performances. From Bhangda to Lavani, from mushy romance to peppy numbers, from retro to funky songs, from sizzling item numbers to folk songs! We had dancers grooving to all kinds of music! Dancers from all age groups rocked the stage! Thanks to Mrs. Pramila Talpade with whose initiative we had senior ladies grooving to a popular retro song – ‘Shola jo bhadke’. They looked lovely on the stage winning numerous cheers and screams of ‘once more’ from the audience! Their enthusiasm and grit to go up on stage at that age and perform to a live audience unhesitatingly was much commendable. Vishwas sir would fondly call them ‘little ladies’ they were indeed little pretty ladies! If on one hand we had our senior members the juniors were not lagging behind! We got a roaring response with around 20 kids live on stage the youngest being a little more than 2 years old if I am not mistaken. These kids were the star attraction of that evening! No stage fright, full of confidence, and exuberance, these kids just stole the show! And now coming to the rock stars! Yes our very own dancers and actors who slogged for one month continuously to make the show what it is. It is indeed difficult to believe but for many of these actors it was their first stint at acting! They had to learn as quickly as they could and deliver at the same time! Indeed a tough time for most of them learning the dialogues, expressing, understanding timing especially for comic scenes, I must say! And now talking about our dancers! The efforts that these dancers have put in cannot be expressed enough in words. Whoever has seen the dances, will surely agree that as far as the choreography is concerned, the bars had been raised higher. Thus making it even more difficult for not just the non dancers, but also the dancers to get a grip over the dances! But the rock stars that they all are they could all manage it in the limited time span of one month given to them! A great team effort by the committee members, the hard work and perseverance of all the actors and dancers along with the cooperation of the Prabhu Tarun board made this event a grand success!
Of course my editorial is incomplete without thanking a few people who have contributed in a big way towards this show. Firstly a big ‘thank you’ to all the donors who have generously contributed funds, so that we could give this platform to our community members to showcase their talent. I’m sure with your support we will grow manifolds in the future and also form a base for bringing this talent on one platform and do more work within the community. We are very grateful to our event sponsor Videocon International for their support. And even more grateful to Mr. Vinay Nayak, who has helped get the sponsorship. We also take this opportunity to thank Mr. Pradeep Dhairyawan for helping us in our times of need, by providing us a venue for rehearsals completely free of charge. Of course Pratyush 2010 would never be the same without Mr. Vishwas Natekar and Mr. Satish Joshi. For Vishwas this was his second year with us and he had painstakingly worked on this project as his own baby! Although a professional he went out of his way to see that this show was a hit by creating some wow moments in the show. His assistants Shraddha Chavan and Aniket Jadhav along with him toiled through the days and nights, to ensure our participants were getting their each move right! Training a set of non dancers within a span of one month and making them perform difficult steps and stunts was an impossible task at hand, but he made it happen! Hats off to you Vishwas sir! For Joshi kaka this project began more than two months back, from the time we briefed him on the show. He was the brain behind the script and also directed the play. He had given his two months to this show, and ensured that we were able to put up a great act together. Understanding our requirement and then scripting accordingly as per the taste of the audience wasn’t an easy task. It was his dedication and hard work that such a convincing act could be staged. On behalf of Prabhu Tarun I would like to wholeheartedly thank both Vishwas sir and Joshi Kaka for their priceless contribution towards Pratyush 2010. Last but definitely not the least a very big ‘thank you’ to all the 70+ participants and all the backstage and on field volunteers who dedicated themselves to this show and made Pratyush 2010 what it is!
Before I conclude, I would like to share some of my thoughts or should I say lessons that we learnt during the making of this show. When we began planning for the season 2, we had certain apprehensions like; will we have the same number of participants this year as last year? Can we put up a show as great as or better than last year? Will the community support us again and come to see our show? Etc. Apprehensions were many but no solutions! We decided to take each day as it comes and work out every task as it comes. Slowly everything started falling in place just like a jigsaw puzzle. We learnt that sincere effort and hard work coupled with good intent is always rewarded. Whether it was for the skit or for dance, we got an overwhelming response from the community. Of course there were some who didn’t turn up, but there were double the number of fresh participants whom we welcomed with open arms! When something on such a large scale is organized it is not possible to keep everyone happy, you win some you lose some! With changing times expectations also change! Way back in 1997, as teenagers when we used to dance in community events we used to be happy with just a venue available for rehearsals. The icing on the cake would be occasional visits by the then Editor of Prabhu Tarun Late Mr. Suhas Kothare who used to often treat us with ‘vada pav’ and soft drinks! We never even dreamt of demanding snacks or refreshments while rehearsing and would happily sustain on just water for most days, which was also brought from our respective homes! Today it is binding for us to offer these comforts to our participants as is what they expect from us. We never even had the audacity to question the choreographer’s choice of dancers or even suggest who he should take in which dance back then because we had full faith in him. But today we have to handle such issues not only from dancers but also entertain parents’ requests. In this process if we have hurt any of the participants or their family members then we would like to clarify that there was no intent of doing so, but we were only trying to be as impartial to all participants as possible giving all a fair chance! Here, I would like to take the liberty and proudly state that today Pratyush is not just a platform for talented people to showcase their talent, but it is a ground to hone our skills and do things which we would never be able to do, anywhere outside. We appeal to everyone to please look at this platform as an opportunity and appreciate what it can offer you, than mull over what you could not do. If we all work together with this mind set we all will be better artists and deliver bigger and better performances in the future. Well, as they say “As you sow, so shall you reap.” I can proudly declare that we have got our due credit for all the efforts we have put in the show. Together with our gang of participants we have recreated SHOLAY, and will keep doing so for years to come! ARE YOU ALL WITH US?