The Concert

Those of you, who know me, would be pleasantly surprised to know that I actually danced during the A R Rahman concert on October 8, 2005. To say that the concert was a mind-boggling experience is an understatement. The golden threads of music that caressed us all on that night, seemed to dim the refulgence of the sun himself!

The day began with the sweet strain of Saxophone music coming out of an antiquated Phillips tape in my bedroom. After palavering myself to wash my dirty linen, I fixed up 4.30pm to meet up with my group for a concert that was to start at seven. When I recall that moment now, I remember trying to fathom the phonetics of a lizard. Little was I to know that the kind little lizard was telling me that there was no point fixing up a time when my friend happened to be a girl!

I reached the venue a quarter of an hour before the agreed time and was greeted with vast emptiness. (The venue for the concert was the Palace Grounds). This is when God decided to play with me (better still 'play with us'). I got a sad affirmation of the magnitude of my ignorance when I realized that there were N number of entrances to the palace grounds and I happened to be at the wrong entrance. I remember Sun Tzu saying in The Art of War that 'any time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted'. Well, I got to agree with him! I would have lost at least a kilogram walking around the grounds and came across all the entrances to the concert without deciding on one.

Now, onto the second trick. If you remember, I was supposed to meet my friend at 4.30. Probably I must have added 'Indian Standard Time and not Indian Stretchable Time'. Along came our great friend almost an hour late and not a trifle apologetic. Well, I shouldnt have expected anything, should I? As if to compound matters, my good friend conveniently 'forgot to bring along the glasses that are necessary for watching a 3-D show! We entered the venue at around six and despite our surprises on getting a strategic place to sit; we scrambled to our chairs (a small group of nine stupid little oafs). Apart from the small confusion between IST and IST, I was overwhelmed by how things were running smoothly.

About 10 minutes after we settled into our chairs, it started to drizzle. We had one umbrella amongst us and being generous, I gave my jerkin, which I happen to dislike, to another friend, who as always is the case with such scenarios happened to be a girl! If I would have known before hand that it would be raining bollocks, I would have thought otherwise and probably, just probably, I wouldnt have made it to the concert too. What started as a pleasant drizzle turned out to be down pour. Here we were a crowd of about 10000+ braving the rain-god to listen to a different kind of sermon. We were literally shaking a leg or two even before the music started. All said and done, God was really sympathetic and he conked off the 3-D hi-tech instruments, lest we suffer the ignominy of watching a 3-D show without the 'special devices. I heard my friend heaving a sigh of relief when we learnt that the 3-D instruments have conked off.

The man himself came on stage at about nine. If someone would have asked me what I exactly felt at that moment, I would have quoted the following lines that the British author Sir Henry Rider Haggard used to describe the moon in King Solomon's Mines - "The full bow of the crescent moon peeps above the plain and shoots its gleaming arrows far and wide, filling the earth with a faint refulgence, as the glow of a good man's deeds shines for a while upon his little world after his sun has set, lighting the fainthearted travelers who follow on towards a fuller dawn". We were exactly like a group of men possessed by spirits, grooving to every beat, every rhythm, every word and every raga. Apart from the all-time favorites like 'Vennilave vennilave' the song that stole my heart was ARR's soulful rendition of his theme music for the fight against poverty, spearheaded by the UN. Some of the groovy tunes like 'Chaiya chaiya' and 'Mangal mangal' kept the crowd on its feet and when 'Mustafa Mustafa' was on air it was like the nostalgic bug has bit everybody...I saw everybody reveling in their own thoughts, those sweet memories that sometimes are the only things that keeps us going. The insensate hands before the beginning of the concert were clapping almost involuntarily during the concert. Sivamani playing the drums was arts in motion. When the show was coming to an end, an end that we never wanted, nature was resplendent in its second installment. It was as if, nature itself was in a state of euphoria when it remembered that such a genius came from its bosom.

When I woke up the next day at another friend's place who had agreed to give me lodgings for the night, I took stock of the things that were hopelessly drenched. Both of my mobiles were not working. As if that's not enough, two of the books that I purchased just a day before were completely drenched. Luckily my watch was working. I was asking myself - was it all worth this trouble? Hell YES! After all, who gets the opportunity to listen to a maestro in full flight on a lovely evening with a lovely group? My only suggestion to you when you go for an open-air concert would be - do not take any umbrellas and lest it must rain, enjoy the rain!