Junya Athvani - Pathare Prabhu Swapna Sundari

People form associations. They want their children to grow up in communities. They want others to take pride in their children's achievements. My parents are part of the Pathare Prabhu association. As children, we really enjoyed participating in the numerous debates, elocution, drawing competitions and the like.
I was feared and respected in PP circles for my English prowess. Although the PP community tried hard to instill the Marathi-ness of us all into our impressionable minds, secretly they admired English speaking people much more and each one of them broke into English when suitably drunk (in an effort to sound more learned)

So we were growing up with the sense of being a PP somewhere on the periphery of our vision - I would proudly proclaim that we PPs are the Original Inhabitants of Bombay City - (of course I had no clue of how to say that in Marathi)

Then hey presto - Sushmita Sen won the Miss India and went on to be Miss Universe and Aishwarya Rai won the Miss World title in the very same year and the PPs, forward thinking as they are, decided to have their very own beauty contest. They named it Pathare Prabhu Swapna Sundari which roughly translates to PP Dream Girl. My mother was very insistent that I participate and some of the glamor of Ash and Sush had rubbed off on me too, which is why I was very willing.

We had a quest for finding the perfect saree. And then the perfect accessories and then we had to decide who would do my makeup and what I would say on stage. Of course I had loads of people helping me to rehearse my lines. There was excitement backstage and mostly in the minds of my cousins and little brother and sister, who were awaiting my arrival on stage with a lot of anxiety and trepidation.

The magic moment arrived and I did exactly what a headstrong idiot would do. I spoke in impeccable English about my sense of pride in being a PP and how I would make sure that we preserve the culture and the PP-ness of us all. Duh!

Of course I didn't win. A better looking, Marathi speaking, airhostess did. I was very glad for her, but the disappointment of my mother was too much for me to take.

Did she actually expect me to win?