Fête de la Francophonie

During the month of March, at Alliance Française de Bangalore, the French festival of music was celebrated. All the students and professors were provided a platform to present their talents. Among many events such as theatre, films, dance, music, wine and exhibits few contests designed specifically for the students, got us all involved in the festival. This united our class members in a very different level.

Our prof encouraged us to participate in most of the contests and we did – In cuisine, slogan and singing contest. While our classmate Neha prepared excellent Quiche, she made sure to cook one big vegetarian Quiche for us. I must say that the dish was much better than the one we had had at Café Noir.

Several of us submitted slogans. I won a special prize fo army slogan. When I framed my slogan, Jenn, (my writer friend from the US) who has studied French as well, suggested some improvements. So I call it - “The Indo–US collaboration wins a fourth prize in the French slogan contest”. One could quote this example for globalization, I guess. In my acceptance speech, I took the liberty of being handed over the mike for announcing my slogan and thanked my three teachers who were present there. 

But as always, individual participation does not unite people as much as the team participation does and for us the two songs that we had decided to sing did that magic. We chose one romantic song called – La Semaine Prochaine by Marc Lavoine and a rap song called “Les Mots” by La Rue Ketanou. We had several practice sessions at end of every class which brought out the zeal and enthusiasm in us like we had had perhaps during our college time. So what if we did not win a prize, the memories of fun and togetherness shared before and during the performance shall remain forever. While all other classes had 4-5 participants in their songs, almost 80% of our class was present to participate in spite of it being a weekday. 

Fête de la Francophonie and the classe de Français take me to a world of my choice that is filled with creativity. I enjoy the company of my classmates who come form different background and age groups. Most importably, they are enthusiastic and sensible.