“A Night under the Stars!” That was promised to the attendees on the brochures for the 2016 IMU Dental Ball which was held at Istana Hotel on 27 February. 
Those in attendance were fabulously dressed up. The men were in their best evening wear. Black suits, grey suits and tuxedos – men could be spotted adorning them, making them look absolutely dapper. The females were even better dressed than their male counterparts. Many of them had taken hours to prepare for the part, with perfectly coiffed hair, dresses of varying lengths in a riot of colours and high heels, they were completely unrecognisable and each and every one of them looked simply stunning! There was a lot of mingling and chit chat going on interspersed by the sounds of cameras and phones clicking as pictures were taken to remember the occasion by! The organisers of the event had gone out of their way to set up a photo booth, along with props, for people to take photos with as souvenirs of the night. The booth remained one of the biggest crowd attractions throughout the evening as people thronged around it. 
Once everyone was seated at their tables, the emcees opened the ceremony wonderfully. Performances had been prepared by various students as well as staff. The night kicked off with a fast paced dance number by three of the dental girls. Musical performances punctuated the programme throughout as a couple of students took their turns behind the mikes to serenade the audience with their vocal skills. As always, one of the lecturers, Dr Niekla was invited up on stage and everyone cheered loudly as she belted out two melodious numbers while being backed up on the guitar by one of her mentees. 
It wasn’t just the music that kept us entertained though! A few friendly contests were set up. The nominees for the “Best Couple” were called onto stage and asked to help each other gobble down a lemon (to represent the sour times in life) and an apple (to represent the sweet times in life) in a contest to see who could complete the task the fastest. Nominees for the “Best Dressed” awards were also picked and asked to come on stage. They were then given the red carpet to show off their best catwalks with all eyes in the room on them. By popular vote, Dr Abhishek and Dr Sobia walked away with the “Best Dressed Teacher” awards.
A video, chronicling the memories of the graduating DT111 batch was played to help everyone relive the good times that they all went through together. The attendees from DT111 were then asked to come on stage where a congratulatory cake was waiting to be cut by them. 
As the performances and entertainment programme wound down for the night, the dance floor was opened up to the audience. It didn’t take long for the more uninhibited ones to take to the floor immediately. Before long, a train of dancing dentists and dentists-to-be was making its way around the ball room. As the crowd slowly dispersed, some of those present went home to get a well-deserved rest. Most however, including this author, had further plans to party into the wee hours of the morning at one of the nearby night clubs. A whole bunch of us only got back into our beds when dawn was about to break! The event definitely delivered on what the brochure promised! An entire night under the stars indeed! 
Click here for more photos. Written by IMU Dentistry Student, Auleep Ganguly. Auleep was the recipient of the Aflame Student Award and will be graduating this year (2016).
