A young participant listens to his mother’s instructions before the fancy-dress contest begins. Picture by Pabitra Das

It was Mother’s Day at the Junior Horlicks Sananda Duddar Dushtumi in Royal Bengal Room at City Centre on Sunday and mothers did what they like doing best — spend lots of quality time with their tots.

The day-long event, with actress Sreelekha Mitra as guest of honour, packed in loads of excitement. Emcee Rini kept the energy levels high as the fun and frolic kicked off with a performance by Calcutta School Of Music. Next, the Go As You Like fancy-dress competition had more then 175 participants. There was goddess Lakshmi in a red sari and golden crown, a WWF fighter, a nurse, a host of kings, fairies, sages, parrot, bunny, butterfly, chef, bride and more.

Archita Gupta, dressed as Lakshmi, loved every moment of her act. “It is fun,” said the four-year-old. Sriparna Bandopadhyay had come all the way from Sodepur with daughter Urbi. “With her recent haircut, she hardly looks like a girl. So I thought dressing her up as a clown was a good idea,” smiled mother Sriparna.

Sreelekha was very impressed. “Kudos to the mothers for dressing up their kids so beautifully,” said the actress. The daddies, for their part, were busy taking pictures of their kids on stage.

Adding to the fun was a play zone with an inflated elephant for children to jump on. A quiz for mothers had questions testing them on science, geography, literature and films. A photo contest and musical performances were among the many other activities. Play sets, water bottles, piggybanks, educational CDs, puzzles and a host of other goodies were given away.