February 1 – 14, 2004
It makes you - and everything we do for you – special

THERE are three stages to any event, be it a wedding, or a kid's birthday do. The anticipation and planning lulls you into thinking everything will be a cakewalk. Then the actual event gets underway. It's like riding a roller coaster; one minute you're smiling benignly at everything and everyone, the next minute you are screaming and tearing your hair out, wondering if the madness will ever end.

THEN suddenly, just as you begin to get into the mood of things and decide you will flow with the tide and let things work themselves out, it is over. There are only the leftovers and the empties staring at you, and the noise and clatter have been replaced by a quiet you never thought could exist.

THE warm glow of knowing that it went well eventually surrounds you, but there is a sense of a sudden letdown. You realise you are actually missing the adrenaline that pumped through you while things were happening.

IT is this sense of withdrawal that hits me after every Femina event. It hits me after the Femina Miss India Show, and now I am sure it will catch me in its grip the moment the Femina Bridal Show packs up.

IT has been a crazy three days. The energy at the venue is quite different from the mood at work. Here in the office, one is focused, in control (well mostly) of one's day, and can plan how to move from one thing to another. There, at the venue, everything has a mind of its own. Crowds come massing in; just when you think it's time to take a quick bite, the backdrop in one store decides to drop a curtsy all of a sudden, creating a blur of panic, the lights flicker because someone has pulled a wire while moving a stand, the lucky draw winner won't claim her prize because she has gone home, and one stall owner is exhausted because there's too much crowding in her store, while another worries that there won't be enough stock left for the last day...

THEN, the shows begin and the venue seems to tilt dangerously towards the sea, as the halls empty out to form rings of people around the door that guards the area till it is time for the music and ramp-walking to start. Later in the evening, a film star is spotted in the crowd and autograph hunters create a scramble... it's amazing what a microcosm of life an event can be...

AND then, it is all over. Finis. The lights go out, the music stills, and the crowds are someplace else, doing something else. And an emptiness fills me.

IT takes a while, but I find myself coming to terms with the fact that life cannot be all excitement and cream pastries, and the feeling of wellbeing comes back, because I know we have done it, and more important, we can and will do it again.

IT'S the Femina spirit that makes the magic happen. Regardless of what the event is, it touches each person who is involved in it in strange, wonderful ways. So, even as the first modalities are being worked out and the event moves to the stage when the first nails are being driven into the ply boards that may form the stalls or the green room, the spell is cast. Soon, even outsiders who have come in because their services have been hired, find themselves referring to it as "our show".

THE Femina Bridal Show too, did just that. Whether it was a designer who was venturing into the event for the first time, or a seasoned show jumper, whether it was a team member handling a Femina event for the first time, or a Femina reader who wanted to see if the event would match the promises made, the spirit touched one and all.

AND left each of us with the knowledge that Femina is special because it believes that everything it does and everyone it touches is special.