Hostel Guest Night, or the Grand Fiasco

I agreed to help in our annual hostel gust night, being a good little hosteler and all. At first I had been approached to host the damned thing, but I had said no. Amanda had told me about her experience of the Diwali party and how they had expected a script and all sorts from her, and seeing as I have impending essay deadlines, I just didn't think it was feasible. However, my friend Tanveer then came to me saying she would host it, but would I help her by announcing a few things. I can deal with announcing things, so I said yes. What a mistake that turned out to be.

Tanveer asked me to write the welcome note, and she would write the introduction for the chief guest, Professor Upinder Singh, daughter of the Indian PM and a history lecturer at Delhi University, and everything else that needed writing. Unfortunately, Tanveer buckled under stress mid-week, leaving me to run around writing everything else. I ended up setting the program for the whole night, getting the acts organised into an order, chasing everyone up to make sure they were ready and even printing off the damned programs. I had everyone who was anyone chasing me, from the Provost to the culture committee (who should have set the program themselves seeing as they were the ones in charge of the night from the off). I managed to get everything done in the nick of time, but I felt like I was being run off my feet. Obviously there was nothing that could have been done. All the girls were like headless chickens, the Provost had been completely uninformed of how things were going till the last minute and so felt she could change things at the last minute, the President of the hostel was shirking all responsibility including the writing of her own speeches which she got other girls to do after I point blank refused and then avoided her for two days, and Tanveer was for all intents and purposes MIA. The only person to offer much helpful support was our new resident tutor, who knows Crispin (what historian here DOESN'T know Crispin??), and who was good enough to look over what I had written a couple of times. 

Trying to get the damned thing started was hard enough. None of the acts appeared assembled, Tanveer was nowhere to be seen, and despite my repeated attempts to check that the music was ready for each piece I kept on being told to give two more minutes. How and ever, the night finally kicked off. So I said my welcome note. Tanveer appeared and said her introduction and acted the entire night like nothing was wrong and that I was like a clever child who followed her directions well. Throughout the cultural show I had the Provost hissing in my ear asking me to speed things up and then to make the girls move to a particular piece of stage or sing louder or whatever else she thought was wrong. Despite my obvious powers of telepathy (...) I was unable to satisfy each and every demand and in the end got quite confused. Every time I announced an act there would be two minutes of kerfuffle while the girl who had assured me she had all the music cued and ready to go found the music. Elmira said it was hilarious when I said that "'ready' must be a euphemism for 'not ready'" to the audience by way of explanation of why I announced things that did not appear. The President Maria got really angry with me when I suggested she perhaps should hand out all the committee certificates later on due to time constraints (I had no knowledge of how long each act lasted, and nor did anyone else seem to for that matter, which was interesting when we had allotted the show one hour only) and she told me I was ruining the entire thing for her. Fortunately I was vindicated later when everyone agreed with me that it could have been skipped and that it was as boring and stupid as all hell. 

One thing I learnt while presenting this madness was that I am good at being a host, but no good at improvising acceptable anecdotes to tell in between acts. All I could think of amidst the shambles was how much like a convent the hostel was, and how many of the occupants appeared to have no common sense or concept of reality. I couldn't have dared come out with "So this one time Lauren flashed a nun..."

Some of the acts were very good. Mehrnoush did her Iranian dance - the sexiest classical dance known to man bar belly dancing (ah the irony of an Iranian woman dancing sexily in public when it is illegal in her own country), and the Bangladeshi girls' dance was very professionally done as well. Saloni's salsa and the Mauritian dances stole the show, as everyone thought they would. The African girls' dance was very good as well, and they had painted their faces in a very funky way with loads of white dots. The fashion show (or cultural dress display should I say - apparently 'fashion show' is a term degrading to women according to our Provost) was nice as well. Lauren looked great. Amanda and I had constructed a completely mad Queen Elizabeth outfit complete with ruff for her. 

I could have cried for joy once the whole thing was over. I went upstairs with Amanda and tanya, had a shot of Old Monk for the nerves (you know it is bad when you are breaking out Old Monk. Old Monk is our version of Tesco Value Gin) and went back down to eat. The food was amazing, and the dancing was great fun. I managed to forget all the silliness of the night pretty quickly. We were reminded of the fact that we live in a prison though when the party was abruptly ended at 11 pm sharp, lest we stay up past our bedtimes. It really is truly ridiculous. The guards then started herding the guys out of the hostel, prodding them in the back. 

The night was great fun and frustrating. Fun because of the company, the silliness, the dancing and the general camaraderie. I now know so many more people in the hostel by name having spent several days trying to corral them into some kind of order. It was frustrating because I had been left to do so much more than I had anticipated, had therefore done no work, had managed to piss off several people because I couldn't cater to every little whim as it rose up, everyone had to leave by 11pm and there was no drink involved. Thankfully it is the last large event in the hostel calendar so I need not worry about being preyed upon for anything like this ever again. 

I sound sort of annoyed by the whole thing. I wasn't. I was happy when afterwards people came and told me I had done well and had been a good host. I just wish they could have taken on some of the responsibility themselves. It has also taught me never to organise anything with Tanveer ever again, as she might be unable to cope and thus leave me up shit creek. 

The other interesting thing about the night was Ben's roommate Manjesh. He told me that he hardly recognised me, having not seen me since the start of our time here. Apparently I am 'Indianised'. Am I? I asked Iain and he said that I was certainly a little bit more tanned than usual, which was totally helpful. I find this slightly funny as I was wearing a halter-neck purple dress with a completely inappropriate cleavage: The Indian Look.