YEC marks it in style

PUNE, Dec 6: Laughter, music and joy reigned at the YMCA hall yesterday morning as the Young Express Club YEC celebrated its seventh bi...

PUNE, Dec 6: Laughter, music and joy reigned at the YMCA hall yesterday morning as the Young Express Club YEC celebrated its seventh birthday.

The celebrations began with the cake in the shape of number seven being cut at 11 am. After that, students of standard 2A and 2B of Loyola Boys8217; primary school were invited to perform a dance ballet 8212; 8220;It8217;s a small world.8221; A few of the boys dressed in costumes representing eight different countries 8211; India, Germany, France, Africa, England, Israel, Mexico and Japan 8211; along with other students who had flags of different countries in their hands, paraded on stage while others who formed the choir sang a few lines in eight different languages.

Then began the talent search round. A competitive round divided into instrumental and dance sections where 35 students participated. The instrumental round had members playing on the synthesiser, tabla and casio. Catchy tunes, good selections and rhythm characterised the session. The dance competition was again divided into Indian and Western sections. Kids can make wonderful dancers and they proved it beyond doubt.

The judges for the talent search were theatre actress and classical dancer Pournima Manohar, violin and tabla player Kritika Raghuram also a classical dancer and Bhairavi Kulkarni, singer of the Lambada group. In the instrumental round, the participants were marked for piece selection, rhythm, confidence and overall appeal. For the dance category, they were marked for their mudras, expressions, stage coverage and dress.

In the instrumental category, Anisha Shah won the first prize and Surhud Godbole the second, both played the synthesiser, Megha George won the third prize. In the Indian dance, Apurva Makan, P Madhumita and Deepti Garg won the first, second and third prizes. They performed Bharatnatyam. In the western dance category, Ajinkya Shinde won the first prize, Pushpak Bhandari the second and Apoorva Shah the third. The winners were awarded gift coupons for free pizzas at Domino8217;s.

One particular corner in the YMCA hall attracted the kids the most. This was where artist Gita Godbole painted interesting pictures on the cheeks and forehead of the kids. On some she painted a water melon, cartoon characters, one had the YEC logo painted on his cheek, another one got his face painted like a native American, one had a strawberry on his rosy cheeks, yet another got a mask round his eyes. The kids looked very attractive and colourful.

The excited YEC members were given a 40 percent discount coupon on pizzas at Domino8217;s as return gifts. The beverages were sponsored by Pepsi. Around 300 members attended the function. YEC, operating under the aegis of The Indian Express is a club for children aged between six and 15 years.