Two shows — back to back — live, on the stage of Pragjyoti ITA, Machkhowa truly entertained the Guwahatians on the rainy water-logged weekend of August 29 and 30. Ironically for me personally, these events came as a welcome backlash to a recent article of mine that appeared in the Horizon where I rued the lack of iconic international events in Guwahati that would take the humdrum of our TV-watching evenings away. On August 29 the ‘Dabur Gulabari Fresh Face of the Northeast 2009’ celebrated the beauty of the young woman in its effort to find a decent fresh modelling face from among eighteen aspiring nymphs. However, 700 odd were the number of applications that had to be pruned to select the final eighteen. On August 30 ‘Brain Jam 2009’, into its fourth year of honouring human intelligence in a quiz format — open and challenging to all who dared to take it, was so intellectually brilliant that Guwahati simply rocked!

Armed with tickets to premium stage-front seats on both the occasions, I found myself among the teeming hundreds inside the plush ITA auditorium. The Dabur pageant was a feast for the eyes. The superbly done-up stage immediately created an ambience of glitz and glamour not often seen in Guwahati. And for good measure, it seemed that Shillong had descended onto our city: the dancers were Shillongites, the female and male song-performers were Shillongites and the host and hostess were also Shillongites. The participants though were from all over the Northeast, Guwahatians making up the largest chunk. And the judges comprising a fair sprinkling of local celebrities included our very own ghazalist Anirbaan Das, theatre personality Sattyakee D’Com Bhuyan and designer Meghna Rai Medhi. The performances, renditions and the sashaying participants, performing on what was indeed excellent infrastructure in terms of stage décor, lighting and sound gave the audience an experience to savour for long in the future.

Three rounds of beautifully choreographed catwalks: one in denims and Ts, the second in traditionals and finally the third in rose-pink, custom-tailored evening gowns that also contained an edgy, nervous question & answer session and in between all these rounds, with dashes of brilliant vocal renditions of popular English and Hindi songs and dance sequences thrown in, the pageant threw up the gorgeous and intelligent Bidisha Barua as the Dabur Gulabari Fresh Face of the Northeast, 2009. Everything perfect and my heartiest congratulations to the brave souls who dared to conceive and put up the show.

All I can say about Brain Jam 2009 on August 30 is that Guwahati went international that day. It was just quiz and nothing else and yet it was the grandest entertainment spectacle Guwahati has ever seen. If it was the surging crowds on one hand, it was the high-quality participants on the other. If it was the awesome stage-mounting here, it was quiz-master Barry O’Brien everywhere. From the moment of the opening act of Sattyakee D’Com Bhuyan, it was an amazing mix of fun, laughter, and intellectual stimulation packaged so perfectly.

As for the quiz-maestro Barry O’Brien (master is passé for Barry, to me at least), his instant rechristening of the participant groups’ names as Ma & Me (the mother and daughter team), Pa & Me (the father and daughter team) or Smiling Doctors (the young medical student pair), his sparkling wit and his amazing story-telling prowess, his capacity to laugh at himself while comparing himself to that live cartoon, Mr Bean, his lovely well-scaled rendition of Yaad aa raha hai... to express his heartfelt inability to reach the first floor balcony audience, his Bachchanisque stage presence, his incredible interactive ability with his given audience, his act of judiciously distributing about 900 pieces of prizes among the audience, and in fact, his sheer bloody energy at holding forte in a three-hour-long serious quiz competition, leaves him unsurpassed in his field. I have seen Siddharth Basu live, Derek O’Brein and Jayant Kriplani on TV but the sheer livewire of a quiz master that Barry is, puts him in a league of his own. To have witnessed a harmless quiz show that assumed the proportions of an entertainment extravaganza which, I will not hesitate to term once again, as one of international standards, was a matter of privilege for all of us in the audience and it has left me wondering as to how Priya Communications, led by the affable Anup Khanna and his team will better themselves than this the next year round. Small wonder that they all would have to have some real brain-storming bouts to keep the standard of this glorious event in- tact.

To add to all this was the soul-searching, thought-provoking theme ‘Go Green’ projected through an AV presentation that tugged at the heart-strings making me seriously contemplate my personal lack of contribution towards stopping global warming as also the creative tribute to Michael Jackson’s philanthropic attributes.

Winter is round the corner and Guwahati, I believe, is lined up with a lot more of these shows and pageants. I take pleasure in welcoming all readers to the entertainment capital of the Northeast: Guwahati where, with Brain Jam being the case in point, the plush facility of Pragjyoti ITA is proving to be small. To quote D’Com from his opening act at Brain Jam, “Let peace prevail” and hope Guwahati surges ahead with renewed vigour.

swapnilbharali@yahoo.com

Swapnil Bharali