Beauty Queen, Dancing Queen

Two things happened to me recently- I was asked to be a judge at a local beauty pageant, and I tried to sit through a local stage version of 'Mamma Mia'.

It wasn't all bad. But it wasn't all good either.

Alright then. Lets start with the good stuff. Being a judge entitled me to a free trip(if only for a day) to the city of Colombo. I'm always up for visiting places I've never been. And Colombo was a pleasant surprise. I half-expected to have a rifle up my nose on arrival, but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, I was greeted by row after row of duty-free all kinda liquors.

Now the contest was another thing altogether. I am not big on beauty pageants, never have been. But this one happened to be in honor of renewing ties between India and her tear-drop neighbor, and I am definitely big on causes. It makes me feel useful in these difficult times.

Unfortunately, the 'cause' did nothing to alleviate the 'effect' the beauty queens had on me. I was bored, and apparently, it showed. A photographer came up to me afterward and told me in the nicest way possible how much he enjoyed taking pictures of my many bored expressions. Still, I did the best I could, and awarded brownie points to the only girl onstage who had a brain, and thankfully she happened to win. That made me feel pretty pleased, though not half as pleased as when I found the complimentary marzipan in my hotel room.

And then of course, the other thing. The thing I brought upon myself- voluntarily appearing at a performance of 'Mamma Mia'.

Truth be told, I'm no Abba fan. I used to listen to some of their songs as a child, but the only song I ever liked was 'Dancing Queen', maybe because it's tinged with the slightest hint of bittersweet, teenage melancholia. And I could most certainly connect to that. Mamma Mia the musical, on the other hand, was not something I could connect with, try as I did. It had nothing to do with the singing or the dancing and I wasn't even put off by the not-so-great acting.

Nope, the whole damn thing was just too happy.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I've gotten so cynical that I can't sit back and pretend to know the words to all the Abba songs, while successfully ignoring the wishy-washy everything else. Whatever it was, I just couldn't do it, and had to leave half-way. I was left with no choice, it was like a jar of happy squash had exploded in the theatre and the smell was getting too sickeningly sweet.

Now you might think I'm trying to establish a connection between the beauty queens and the dancing queens, but I'm not. They are two different kinds of queens, and should never be compared, much less discussed in the same breath. The only common factor is me and the fact that I happened to have an over-dose of both in the span of one week.

Luckily, I survived with all my cynicism intact. As for the jar of happy, and the local belles, well, the city of Chennai is big enough for us all to co-exist.