Life time wish comes true...

As I sit here, recuperating from a bad viral fever, I thought I should record the memorable event that happened on Oct 11, 2009. I had one of my life time wishes come to fruition. I attended the A.R.Rahman concert in Chennai. Yeayyyyyy!!!

Let me recollect *some* of the moments in it.

As we waited patiently for the show to begin and the Reddys to wrap up their promos for their site, we could hear AR speaking in the background, and suddenly he emerged from a case that moved from below the stage onto it singing Jaage Hai... Standing ovation followed... He went on to sing Khalbali, ably supported by Shivamani moving to the foreground. The closest view of AR I could get was when he moved above the crowd in the crane, singing Jiya se Jiya, which was thundering!

The improvised version of Mausam and Escape, (Ar in the piano, Azad in the sitar and Sanjeev in the guitar) was out of the world. As the sitar started playing out a different tune with piano chords in the background, it beautifully wove itself into the M&E track and when the rock guitar joined in, it was totally out of the world.

The entire section with AR in the piano was worth the whole show. Especially, when Hariharan sang the Tamizha Tamizha, suddenly AR stood up and started doing something different. He actually started playing the continuum keyboard and belted out Ishwar Janato out of nowhere and it blended so well with the mood that it was heavenly. I had tears :)

There was this girl, Lush, a rapper, who could dance like a lightning and still continue singing. She rocked. Suzanne's energy was mind blowing as well. This is the first time I am seeing her and in spite of her heavier frame, she had so much energy that she could literally pull the entire crowd to its feet. Neeti Mohan also amazed me with her singing and simultaneous dancing. She could effortlessly reach the higher scales in spite of the heavy dancing :)

The Visual effects was top notch in the show. Blaaze truly is a great showman. He could pull the crowd up whenever he wanted. So is Benny. Rashid Ali showed his western singing. Javed Ali impressed me big time. He is such a perfectionist. He could deliver the songs just as they are on record and belt out beautiful improvisations. The Khwaja and Maula he and AR gave in the sufi section of the concert shall remain in my memory for a very long time to come.

When AR came for Rehna Tu, he said how much that song mattered to him and how that song is a dedication to accept a person simply the way the person is. When he said that, the sincerity with which he spoke those words cannot be missed and just observing that sincerity was elevating. Hats off sir!

There were much more moments that can be recorded, Chitra's renditions, Sadhana and Hariharan's versatality, the extremely awesome Delhi 6 rendition by the crew (Benny, Tanvi, Blaze), the Taxi taxi number (Vivianne, Benny, Blaze), Mustafa, Humma Humma, Jai Ho, AzeemoShan medley, Style, Athiradi (it really was an athiradi), special RAP bits added to Chandralekha, sweet improvisations by Naveen on the flute and so on....

It was a great show and I loved it to the core. One more of my Karma is down now :D

Bees-2

I wrote this 2 and a half years back...

And the prophecy is coming to fruition... I don't know what made me write it then, but now I am having goosebumps...

September 25, 2009

This shall be a very special day... One that I shall look back in the future... The one that marked the end of what was sparked off about 6 months ago...

As emotions play around, as a meloncholic strain of breaking a relationship of sorts arises, I am reminded of the futility of the mind that wants to cling on to anything and everything. The stark truth being that in the end, when mortality comes into picture, not a single atom can be taken along. When that is the reality, I can't help but smile, amidst the emotions playing a mourning cello in the background. There lies the power of death, in driving home the point of futility of our actions, clinging on, not wanting change, let alone transformation.

Such is the mind - flimsy, whimsical...
Such is the emotion - flimsy, whimsical...
Such is Life.
No, such is life of the ignorant.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim
because it was well trodden and safe
as opposed to the less travelled one;

And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no feet had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!

And the other day came...
-Sorry Mr. Frost, for the edits to the original

Transformation

From an egg to a caterpillar to a pupa to a butterfly... It is a fantastic process, quite unbelievable in many ways, to see that such a beautiful butterfly appears out of a little dull egg. Such is the magic of creation, but if you didn't read it in Science books, and if you saw an egg and a butterfly, will you know that one came out of the other. No... That is the way I feel at times. When I see human beings who have transformed themselves in such a tremendous way, I doubt if such a thing is possible for us, but they were also once like us. After crawling through life like the caterpillar, right now life is like the pupa. A little more evolved than the caterpillar, but still a dull pupa... Happy, warm, comfortable and cuddled up inside the little cocoon... Not knowing the life of a soaring butterfly, stuck and unmoving... If the transformation has to happen, the cocoon must be broken. What appears like life threatening, that is, breaking of the cocoon that has been the very protection so far, is actually liberating. For a logical mind, a security seeking mind, it may seem absurd that the very house is being broken, but that's the only way the butterfly can come out. It may be a painful process to break open the pupa, but the end result is far more worthy than the shell. Other pupae will never know the experience the butterfly has... They may belittle, argue and call out the foolishness in breaking open the cocoon. But once the desire to transform has set in, one has to make the effort to break open the cocoon... Once the cocoon starts breaking, someday Nature may take over and one may end up soaring as a vibrant butterfly...

Must watch video

A very humbling video, about the universe... The modern sciences is puzzling about what the spiritual sciences have found thousands of years ago...

Mirage

To leave behind a legacy, that cannot stand Time,
To extend the lineage, that knows not the Origin,
To maintain the glory of the caste, that I did not choose to be born into,
Can't you see Dear, all but futile attempts to live Beyond
The inevitable hands of physical mortality...

Immortal, Limitless, Unbounded...
Call it whatever you want...
The fundamental need is the same...
Only the expression differs...
For you and me...

In your quest, you charter my Life
And in my quest, I charter, again, my Life...
Never may understand my ways
But that is not going to stop me
From pulling you Home.

p.s: This had been lying in the drafts for quite a while. Now that I decided to post it, couldn't think of any title. So, if you were looking for the reason for the title, can I say

Dry and parched, Too thirsty am I
A mirage can't quench anymore...