The Day When The Smile Became Involuntary

Laziness is one thing which is slowly and steadily becoming one of the most important aspects which defines me. I had never doubted the existence of such a thing inside of me but the ignorance of mine has allowed it to overtake my everyday functionality in such a way that it has started to affect my better judgment. Oh! Before you start thinking that I am getting remorseful, I would like to tell you to hold your thoughts. Do not get ahead of yourself as I do not even feel ashamed. Instead I have started using it proudly in my lame excuses like the one I am going to make now. I blame my laziness (over which I like to think I have no control) for the time lag between my last post and this one. To give myself a little bit of self esteem I always like to close such arguments on a philosophical note such as ‘it’s better late than never’, ‘all’s well that ends well’ etc.

Anyways enough have been said by me on the topic of my laziness which you do not even want to read about and are not even slightly interested in knowing. So moving on I would like to tell you about the two concerts which I attended recently. Actually they are not so recent but still you will know about them via myyyyyyy post (notice ‘my’ has been stressed) now only so I dare to call them recent.

The first concert which I am going to talk about is about a musical by Fiddlers on the Hoof who are probably one of the best (as far as I know) stage performers in UK. I have a doubt on it being a musical rather it was a collection of English classic which they were performing on stage. Not many people in my age group or shall I say across age will have the taste for such kind of music. A receptive ear is what is very important even if you are not so familiar with the music and fortunately I had a friend who has such a receptive ear. I haven’t been a loner in the sense I need at least a company to enjoy anything and I was so thankful that my batch mate cum flat mate was also interested in going. I was even more so grateful because of my longing desire to go to that particular concert and experience what it is all about. In a concert such as these where one doesn’t have much experience to expect anything in particular the general feeling is to expect the unexpected without any high expectation. With the comfortable environment of a great theatre the show started. My observation tells me that the concert was divided into two sections. The first one more dark and emotional and the second one was more light hearted and had music which were fairly new in the sense that I had heard some of them. The rendition of the soulful music was across various soundtracks such as that of Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Les Miserables, Fiddlers on the Roof , Alladin, Lion King and many more. I have attended or have tried to attend as many concerts in Bangalore as possible but have never come across an experience which was as holistic as the one I had that day. As a stage performer they were not only acting and putting life into the story behind each songs but were able to communicate the feelings inside each song so that even an unfamiliar person was able to go through the same intensity of emotions as any other knowledgeable person present in the theatre. But the most significant part of their performance was their rendition of the various songs. Never before in my life had I heard such rich, deep and soul stirring baritones. It can be crudely and literally be said that a hand (representing their voices) went straight done my throat and shook whatever was their inside in the form soul. I was unable to make goose bumps go away for quite a while. When the concert got over we were so ecstatic and were thanking our lucky stars for giving us such an opportunity. On the way home on the auto my friend and me were discussing about the concert. Actually we were not discussing anything instead we were just smiling without being able to conceal the joy on our face and that summed up how high we were on the music we had just listened to. The only words which we were able to manage to speak were that “There are few things in this world which makes one feel good about oneself, good about one’s own life, good about one’s existence and this concert was definitely one of those thing.” I hope someday you all may also get an opportunity to enjoy such music then probably you will be able to appreciate the feeling which I am trying to express right now.

Contrast is what has defined my life for long. I am a voracious reader, listener and what not. This adaptability, acceptability and hunger cultivated by me over a long period of time, has given me sensitive ears to a varied genre of music. This has provided me with unlimited opportunities to listen to various artists live as the city in which I am share the same kind of enthusiasm in embracing their presence with open hearts. The concert which I am going to write about next belongs to another realm. From classical English number to ghazals by Ghulam Ali and Jagjit Singh. The context switching algorithm has been perfectly embedded in my mind to help in making this transition. It so happened that I managed to land up in this concert with a colleague of mine. The catch over here is that the colleague belongs to opposite sex. How I managed such a coup is another story in itself and the resulting flak I received is even more interesting but I will let this story be with myself for some another time. Moving on ..the show started almost on time (a pleasant surprise) by Jagjit Singh. I believe that Jagjit Singh is more palatable to my generation especially to the group I belong as most of us have been through a lot of alcoholic depressive nights with Jagjit Singh. After him came the hard core stuff of Ghulam Ali who was much more interactive than Jagjit Singh and in the process he sometimes also use to discipline the audience by scolding them into silence. In a ghazal concert the pleasure do get driven by the music and the song we hear, but it is more so driven from the beautiful and meaningful ornamentalization of the words to produce an impact compared to none. The beauty of Urdu as a language comes to the fore in such a concert. The only way in which I can describe the experience which I had is ‘different’ and ‘heavenly’. The only regret I have that I was way back and lost in the sea of crowd gathered instead of being right in front. Nevertheless the enjoyment and the satisfaction received even after being at a distance from the stage was comparable to none.
That’s it folks no matter how much I praise, it wont be enough. But I have to end my blog somewhere and would like to end it now hoping of being able to share a part of the pleasure which I experienced.