When Shakuntala went under the knife…

Disclaimer : All the characters and events in this post are entirely not fictional. Any resemblance to any person is purely not coincidental. The post contains some disturbing images unsuitable for Heart-Patients and Children. Be Warned!

What happens when Mythology meets Modern day tragedy? A mess. That’s exactly what happened to my project in School. Mind you..This story is not all about some silly high school projects or some goofy television show. In fact, Spiderman also played a part in it.

So where do I begin ? It all started when Shakuntala met Dushyant and the whole Shakuntala-ignored-Durvasa fiasco happened. Some of you probably already know the story either from your Grandma or from the over-the-top tamil movie “Brahmarishi Vishwamitra”, while some of you may have read it in your school lessons. I had a lesson about it called “Abhijñānashākuntalam” in my Sanskrit class. Anyway, our school decided to have an Edu-Fest exhibition and we students had to showcase our projects in each department. Yeah.. you got it right .. We decided to do a a life-size model of Shakuntala. We modeled our project based on this picture :

It was around this time that the show “Art Attack” became popular in India. I along with three other girls were allotted to do this “project”. We were quite worked up and decided to art-it up ! The work started in my house. We bought some thermocol sheets, lots of Fevicol glue and a box of paint. The only thing missing was cotton to stuff the model . You know, to make it three-dimensional . So we picked up some courage and went to the nearby Sofa Shop and got some left-out cotton (from the floor) like Rag-pickers. That’s it. We kicked off our project and my house looked as though a tornado took over the place – Cotton pieces and thermocol bits everywhere. Somehow we managed to make half the portion of the model and decided to finish the rest in school . Here come’s the funny part. How did we “transport” her to my school?

She was too big to fit in an auto or any other vehicle and thus we decided to manually do the work . I still remember the day vividly. My friend, my father and I hoisted her up on our shoulders and made our way through the buzzing street . We were only short of one person to look like casket-bearers. To worsen things up, my father put his white dhoti on the model. People on the street looked at us curiously. Some threw odd glances. My house was just a stone-throw distance away from the school. It must have been just 3 minutes but the longest three minutes of my life. Every part of my body was cringing with embarrassment. I was so much relieved once we reached the school .

When Spiderman came to the rescue..

Our next problem was to give her a proper ‘head’. Now were totally clueless. Hell broke loose. At this point, I knew my project was reaching a dead-end and so I concentrated more on my maths project. I don’t exactly know who came up with this idea but they decided to make a face out of a Spider-man mask. Alright. I’m not kidding here. The idea was really creative but c’mon spiderman ? Seriously ? The mask was repainted to give a woman-ish face. The end result was hideous. I mean, it looked like Shakuntala went for a facelift but the plastic surgeon fell asleep halfway through the procedure. Oh man! She looked like a cross between Humpty Dumpty and Marlyn Manson. Coming to our third problem – she was bald ! So my mum and I went all the way to T Nagar and bought a wig for Rs 450 (which by the way I never got refund from the school ). Our problem was almost solved but she still had a bald spot. We didn’t bother about that anyway as were busy making legs and hands for her .

Another Art-attack brain wave . We decided to model her legs from Fanta/Pepsi bottles. Here’s a picture of it. I bet you anything this doesn’t look like a leg . I will give anything if you could only prove that this even remotely looks like a human body part. If you look closely, you can see that a Dinosaur  bit a chunk our of her leg.

The funniest thing about our model was she didn’t have any fingers in her hand. I’m sure none of those people who came in to see the exhibit noticed it. They were probably too busy laughing and pointing. Our ma’am did not see our project until the eve of the exhibition day. When she came for inspection, I heard she was quite appalled. Thank god, we escaped her wrath. I wasn’t there. To patch things up she ripped out the head and went to a professional artist to repaint the face. Don’t be surprised ! The original work we did didn’t make it to a picture. Now for the climax. It was our Principal’s turn for inspection. Again I was in the Maths Department and I missed her reactions. As soon as she entered the room, predictably there was shock lines all over her face. The most outrageous thing happened . She called our project “Ugly” . Ha! We still “displayed” our project didn’t we? In the meantime my mum oblivious to the fact that we created a humanoid-chipmunk crossbreed, paraded through our entire apartment about her daughter’s project.. oh so proudly..When my mum and sister entered the project room they were quite baffled. My sister couldn’t hold in her laughter ..Ah those priceless reactions of the people who walked in to see a creepy face staring back. I am sure the real Shakuntala wouldn’t forgive us for what we did.

And that my friends, is the story of how we did our project. Or rather butchered it.But hey, I have a great story to tell people -“What happens when mythology meets modern day tragedy ?” 😉

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