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ShareMumbai: As Nita Ambani looks on, a sea of blue parts to allow a bunch of multi-coloured fish to flit forward, behold, dancing in rhythm to music. Yellow fish seems a bit lost till a voice from behind cheers him up. The little fellow breaks into a smile as he jostles for space amongst his other brightly dressed classmates, their collective cuteness too endearing to describe.
The loudspeaker booms and of all of them skip away backstage, and a bunch of teenagers step up to take their place. One of them happens to be Ananth Ambani. Look more closely and you'll find the children of most of Mumbai's rich and powerful somewhere on stage, their surnames ranging from Khan and Goenka to Singhal and Tendulkar. And following tradition, every student of Dhirubhai Ambani International School will step up to the spotlight on Annual Day.
"For me, it doesn't matter whose children they are. As far as I'm concerned, every one of them is special. That's why we never choose the best hundred students to put up this show. All my children will show their potential," Nita told DNA in a break between the rehearsals.
While she's an observer today, Nita was on stage herself recently with an elaborate Bharatnatyam performance on Reliance Day, unfortunately out of bounds for the media.
She's lost a remarkable amount of weight, but laughs about wanting to lose 'a little more' -- which she will sooner rather than later if she keeps up her current dawn-to-midnight routine. "My day starts with dance practice at six and sit through the rehearsals here no matter how late it gets. The kids are having a blast -- they think it'sa picnic," says Nita indulgently.
The hard work is showing in other ways too - one student has topped the world (IGCSE schools) in mathematics, another in business studies, while four others have top scored in India. Her own twins Isha and Akash, who recently passed out from the school, are abroad for further studies, like most other passouts. Must be difficult for her without them. "No, I'm not missing them. I've got 1,100 children to make up for them," says an amused Nita.
The theme of this year's celebration is Mumbai, and the message is stark. "We live in a city of dreams. My own father-in-law came here with nothing and made his fortune. But we're destroying it in so many ways -- pollution, disappearing mangroves... this needs to stop. It isn't about dramatic proclamations. It's really about little things -- saying no to plastic bagsor even teaching lesser privileged kids on their nukkad."
