Ani's First Fancy Dress Competition

Ani's school handed out some advertisements by Big Bazaar to a fancy dress competition. On a corner of the advertisement was a picture of the Avengers, which thrilled Ani to bits, who imagined a whole bunch of kids dressed up as various characters from the Avengers.

So yes, of course we had to go. He decided that he wanted to be Ironman, so that's what we went with. I made a mask, painted it and inserted some ties. Then stuck a white circle to a  red T shirt (that's supposed to be his heart or something.... can't remember what it's called) and tada! My job was done.

Tracing out the Ironman face

 When we reached the competition, we realized that nobody, but NOBODY, else was an American superhero, let alone a character from the Avengers. Instead, they were all the ultimate Indian superhero, Krishna.

Ani in his costume at the competition, very upset at lack of Avengers characters

Other kids: a million Krishnas and Radhas

 Ani stared aghast at what his contemporaries thought of superheros. I stared aghast at the sheer effort expended by the moms. Some of them had even trained their kids to sing Krishna bhajans!
Yes, moms of India, I bow down to you- there is NO way I can compete with that.

One of the Radhas. Observe the hair! How much time did this kid's mom spend??

 There was a non-Krishna boy, who jumped up on stage and did some Hrithik Roshan+ Michael Jackson combination dance moves.

The only non-Krishna guy, other than Ani. 

Main lesson learned from this experience:
My Ani does not know (yet) how to discreetly shove his way to the front of any line.

So, all parents had to leave their kids by the side of the stage. By a stroke of good luck and some anticipatory moves on my part, I left him at the front of the line and expected that he would be the 2nd or 3rd kid on the stage and we could leave early.
I hadn't counted on the sheer experience of other kids when confronted with a queue. Before long, what seemed like a hundred kids went on the stage and Ani still hadn't showed up. So I peeked backstage and realized that this poor guy was expecting the other kids to let him on the stage, but didn't know how to just get up ahead and go. He was waiting to be asked to step up! My heart melted a bit there... my poor little baby, with no experience with a whole bunch of dress-up crazy, competitive, expertly shoving kids.

Note to self: practice with kids on how to shove ahead.