Thursday, December 8, 2011

Craziness Redefined!

So, I’m writing about Music again. My escape from the world. Someone once said, if a person is not touched by Music, he is either divine or insane. This statement can’t be wrong actually. Music makes us feel, makes us realize, makes us speak our unspoken feelings, makes us groove, makes us cry, makes us elate, makes us inspire. It won’t be wrong if I say, Music relates us, what we do, what we going through, what we want to do.  We actually cannot define the magic of it, it’s like a journey within us, and it gives us expression, it makes our mind travel through myriad emotions.  Music is the language of the soul. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, eliminating friction. Being at the dominion of Music, I've always felt its magic. It’s one craziness, one passion! It’s one euphoria that dominates me, most of the time when I’m at a close proximity of it. During my short and un-illustrated career as a musician I went through a few crazy incidents, even a mere thought of which makes me crazy.

To start with I remember, it was Fresher’s Social for the newcomers from Assam in Pune. It used to be one real opportunity to showcase your talent to your native people. Practice sessions were full of people, who wanted to perform. Girls accompanied by their boyfriend, so that they can approach us and convince us to get the chance for his girl. Overall a fun environment. One fun day, a girl came up with a song, she wanted to sing. Our keyboardist, Bablu Da asked, “Bhanti, tumar gaan tur scale ki?” (Which scale is your song?). The girl, stunned, waited a while and replied...” Dada, moi scale ana nai nohoi!” (I did not bring a scale with me!). We all just looked at each other with a smirk and went on with the practice session. And later, when all left we were rolling on the floor laughing. No pun intended, but we still imitate this feat, whenever we are in the middle of a boring practice.
  
Smoke N’ I: I remember growing up seeing smoke machines blowing a sage effect during live performances. So, one fine day, when the light and sound engineer asked me, if we need smoke machine for the show, I readily agreed, fantasying the feel I will go through on stage when it blows up. The ever excited me! First song of the evening, and as always we started with a traditional ‘Borgeet’. The light guy, being a local Marathi, had no clue what we were playing, blew up the smoke machine which was incidentally placed just below the stool I was sitting. And in a flash the smoke gulped me in. Trust me, for a minute or two I actually could not figure out where I was.

Dard e Disco: This event happened suddenly. Exams, accident, skinned palm everything was a part of it. So was I, not to forget SRK and Om Shanti Om. It was just a day, the movie had released. We had just one day for practice, and when the singers came in, we asked them to sing common songs, so that it doesn’t consume much time while practicing. 3-4 songs down, I saw a guy sitting in the corner, with a wide grin. Finally it was his turn, I asked generously, “Bhaity, kuntu gaan gaba?” (Which song you want to sing?). The guy retaliated, “Dada, Dard e Disco tu e gai diu, bor solise”. (I’ll sing Dard e Disco, it’s a hit) and while saying so he actually showed us some SRK steps from the song. Though that guy did not sing the song, he actually gave us some respite from the hectic practice session and my bleeding hand.

We Owned The Night: Agriculture College, Pune. It’s one grand ground where most of the concerts in Pune used to take place. The crowd capacity, the atmosphere, the intensity was always there when a concert was there. Seeing youth events like ‘Verve’ (Fergusson College Fest), I used to crave to perform on that platform. And one fine day, it happened...we performed in front of 20,000 odd people...chanting, singing and dancing with us. Good feeling isn’t it. The most amazing part about that show, the crowd gathered there to see KK, Shruti Pathak (Mar Jawaan, OST Fashion fame) and Neha Bhasin (Dhunki, OST MBKD fame) who were to perform after us. But the feeling was so amazing, that we actually forgot that we were just up to an opening act there.

Life for obvious reasons is full of such amazing moments and memories. We leave behind the moments, but the memories remain, ever cherished. And Music, it’s one immortal thing that we all need. We grow, we change but the Music remains same. After a 100 years, we won’t be alive, but the music we create, we sing, we listen will always be there.

4 comments:

Naveen Manomohanan said...

Great post. I can't imagine life without music.

Came here through Rakesh's blog and found your writing very interesting.

Rakesh Vanamali said...

Music = The elixir of life!

my space said...

Nice post...who can better write on the magic of music than a musician himself!!!

Tituraj said...

Today is a day when I read this. And, today we lost someone who has religiously popularized western music in India. he has done his bit and surely we are indebted to his efforts when Vh1 and downloads were alien. Let this be a token of honour to the great Amit Saigal. Let him rest in peace.