Around The World With a Map And a Musical

To celebrate a decade of the Duchess Club’s Travel Wing, members were treated to a concert that had them continent hopping.
Around The World With a Map And a Musical

Around the world in a musical. That was the theme of Saturday night’s show performed by the Madras Musical Association. And this was just as well, as the celebration on hand was the 10th anniversary of the Duchess Club’s Travel Wing. After 29 trips, that covered everything from the Lantern festival in Taiwan to riding on camels in the Nubra valley — the ladies in the audience were all praise for the hard core planner behind it all — Rathi Neelakantan.

Not only does this enthusiastic group of voyagers celebrate travel, it turns out they also cheer on their most travelled members. Shoba Reddy who was sitting in the audience at the Savera, was treated to a pleasant surprise when her name was called out to recognise the one member who hadn’t missed a single of the 29 holiday locales over the years. Taking home a thoughtfully chosen gift, her birth stone, it’s likely Shobha is all revved up to jetset across to Sri Lanka for trip number 30 in August.

After testimonials were said and sentimental wanderlust exchanged, it was finally time for the show to begin. And the over-hundred-year-old MMA choir did not disappoint with one of their signature productions, titled Over the Rainbow. Brightly coloured costumes, pitches higher than most of us dare to dry and melodious synchronicity — were all part and parcel of the evening. The only grouse one could have was the music was louder than the singers in some portions. But all in all, it was fun trip down memory lane — with songs taking us as far Austria with The Sound of Music and the streets of France with a Les Misérables.

With popular tunes from Broadway and pop extracted from a wide range of musicals over the years, a lot of folks in the audience were likely to have felt a twinge of nostalgia. Our personal favourite was a beautifully arranged medley of three — On the Street Where You Live (My Fair Lady), Think of Me (Phantom of the Opera) and I Dreamed a Dream (Les Misérables).

Passport or not, we all know that the one thing that makes the world go round is love.

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