It’s extravagant. But you know what else was extravagant? Our fancy dress competitions. I will go as far as saying that they were the OG Met Gala for most kids, minus the fancy afterparties and plus the additional awkwardness.

Look at that minion kid in the picture below, that must have taken hard work.

Our parents/guardians really came through, though, didn’t they? The planning! First, they thought of a character, then got different accessories and clothes accordingly, then got us to wear all of it which would have been very difficult in some cases.

They put a lot of thought into it, unless of course they didn’t want to, and went with the safe options of the Lord Krishna look or Sita ji look.

My brother was Krishna in his fancy dress competition and my mother made his crown from scratch. You didn’t find these things in the market back then. She also decorated his flute, but he was too shy to play it in front of judges and I totally get that.

(That isn’t my brother or my mother but you get the idea.)

The whole thing was too cute. See? 

My heart!

Some schools also set themes and they were taken seriously. For instance, the little kids here are doing full justice to their roles in a Christmas play. They seem to be in character, too. 

Anyhow, apart from Gods, the other popular characters back in the day were Rani Laxmi Bai. 

Astronaut.

And Gandhiji.

I, though, was fevicol once. No joke. Closer to this.

Though this child is probably giving a message on safe driving. I did no such thing. What message will fevicol give?

So, all in all, Met Gala is great and most of us may not be able to attend it in this life but we have had our share of fun, okay? Being an adhesive changed me as a person.

(Huge shoutout to my colleagues who searched for and sent their pictures for this).