It was saturday and we had nothing much to do under the ceiling, so we decided to remove the parenthesis and broadened our horizons in the quest to find something to do under the sun. As the last of the sun's rays of hope set, we held on to the reflected rays of the moon. There was to be music in the air. Duh!!! I mean 'Part deux'. To sum up what happened last time I could say that it was full of Madness, Fireflies and Chocolate mint liqueur.
Neeti as usual was sending threatening smses to Saurabh as we were late to pick her and Deepti up on the way. This time Dhruv, Namita and Namita's mom joined the gang. The stage was set under a large Banyan Tree, about 30 kms out of Bangalore, at an ashram called Fireflies. We carried two matresses to soften the impact of the stone amphitheatre. We took a lot of cushions and pillows along. It was to be a night of Hindustani and Carnatic vocal and instrumental, Baul, Fusion, Western jazz, folk, and other modern vocal and instrumental music, from 6pm to 6am.
The poster said, "It is a night of conviviality, friendship and spiritual values. It is an evening of great music, much laughter and fun. You go away praising and re-affirming the gift of being alive." After the performances of the Classical Carnatic flute duet and Hindustani Sitar we decided to go to the flea market to satiate our hunger. I was given charge of guarding our belongings. A lady then came with her child and tried to encroach on our territory when I apprised her of the fact that there were many of us. She smiled and said that she understood and moved to the side. But she continued to use our pillow and kept her child who was sleepy on the mattress, which I felt was ok, since we had some extra place. Neeti and Deepti then came and got the pillow back from the lady. Neeti and myself were then discussing about the lady's intentions. Neeti was of the opinion that the lady was wrong in taking our stuff without even asking us and keeping it inspite of me telling her. Neeti said that it was the principle behind it and I should not get soft just cause a lady and a child were involved and also reiterated that they never asked the lady to remove the child from the mattress. I agreed that the lady was wrong but still didn't feel things were right, I just don't know why. However when Dhruv, who was sitting at the side of the child, asked for a pillow I thought it was for the little kid and told Neeti about it, to which she looked at me and smiled. Well it was the spirit behind it. I then felt that things were right and then we all went on to enjoy the music :-) Before leaving the lady smiled and thanked us and left.
The Choir of the Alliance Francaise de Bangalore didn't perform that well. The Hindustani Hawaian Guitar was pretty good. There was also some group that came and did some kind of a tribal dance. They just hit the drums real hard and danced around in their tribal attire, which the crowd seemed to enjoy. After thaat they went up and played near the flea market. Myself, Deepti and Saurabh danced a bit, with some crazy hand movements. Everyone was dancing. I ended it with some classic Mithun Da steps to embarass all of us. Deepti seems like she really enjoys dancing. Saurabh as usual freaks out like me. We even danced in our seats on the mattresses and tried to embarass others :-)
Then came Dr. Thomas Chandy with his group who played some Jazz. Some of the members play Jazz at Java City on Sundays. They have this old uncle who seems very lethargic but plays the saxaphone with all his energy. After that Geetha Navale performed with her group Esperanto. They played fusion music. The music was very different from what I've heard. We liked it a lot. Then a bangla group Oikyotaan played Baul music. They were good but performed for too long and ate into the time of other performers.
It was around 2ish and we decided to head home. We were to miss some nice Qawali, Sufi and rock music. At the parking lot we met some extra luggage and decided to give them a drop to Bangalore. So that made it two ppl in the front and seven in the back. Saurabh said that he used to manage to fit as many as 14 ppl in the back of his modified car. I clicked a lot of snaps which continued in the car. However Saurabh who was driving refused to turn his head for the snap, which left me pretty offended :-) However I forgot abt it as there was music in the air. We were also trying to rag the two college guys who we took on as extra luggage, who were in 11th standard. We were trying all things, in good humour, to get them to do what we wanted. However they didn't feel that they were kids and refused to give in. I then asked the so called kids to guess the age of Deepti and Neeti just to put things off balance maybe and see how they reacted. However the kids guessed their exact age and were spared. I then commented that maye they were a bit scared to say the actual age that popped up in their minds and as the words passed thru their mouths about 5-6 yrs were substracted to play it safe. Then there were counter comments on age and the chatting went on and on. Yeah, we spend most of our life thinking that what we do is the mature and right thing. We think we are right and no longer the kids that we used to be. But finally when we reach that stage of maturity and wisdom, which rarely comes for most ppl, we feel that we want to be kids again. So does that mean that we are all kids, be it mentally or mentally. Hmmm.
Neeti as usual was sending threatening smses to Saurabh as we were late to pick her and Deepti up on the way. This time Dhruv, Namita and Namita's mom joined the gang. The stage was set under a large Banyan Tree, about 30 kms out of Bangalore, at an ashram called Fireflies. We carried two matresses to soften the impact of the stone amphitheatre. We took a lot of cushions and pillows along. It was to be a night of Hindustani and Carnatic vocal and instrumental, Baul, Fusion, Western jazz, folk, and other modern vocal and instrumental music, from 6pm to 6am.
The poster said, "It is a night of conviviality, friendship and spiritual values. It is an evening of great music, much laughter and fun. You go away praising and re-affirming the gift of being alive." After the performances of the Classical Carnatic flute duet and Hindustani Sitar we decided to go to the flea market to satiate our hunger. I was given charge of guarding our belongings. A lady then came with her child and tried to encroach on our territory when I apprised her of the fact that there were many of us. She smiled and said that she understood and moved to the side. But she continued to use our pillow and kept her child who was sleepy on the mattress, which I felt was ok, since we had some extra place. Neeti and Deepti then came and got the pillow back from the lady. Neeti and myself were then discussing about the lady's intentions. Neeti was of the opinion that the lady was wrong in taking our stuff without even asking us and keeping it inspite of me telling her. Neeti said that it was the principle behind it and I should not get soft just cause a lady and a child were involved and also reiterated that they never asked the lady to remove the child from the mattress. I agreed that the lady was wrong but still didn't feel things were right, I just don't know why. However when Dhruv, who was sitting at the side of the child, asked for a pillow I thought it was for the little kid and told Neeti about it, to which she looked at me and smiled. Well it was the spirit behind it. I then felt that things were right and then we all went on to enjoy the music :-) Before leaving the lady smiled and thanked us and left.
The Choir of the Alliance Francaise de Bangalore didn't perform that well. The Hindustani Hawaian Guitar was pretty good. There was also some group that came and did some kind of a tribal dance. They just hit the drums real hard and danced around in their tribal attire, which the crowd seemed to enjoy. After thaat they went up and played near the flea market. Myself, Deepti and Saurabh danced a bit, with some crazy hand movements. Everyone was dancing. I ended it with some classic Mithun Da steps to embarass all of us. Deepti seems like she really enjoys dancing. Saurabh as usual freaks out like me. We even danced in our seats on the mattresses and tried to embarass others :-)
Then came Dr. Thomas Chandy with his group who played some Jazz. Some of the members play Jazz at Java City on Sundays. They have this old uncle who seems very lethargic but plays the saxaphone with all his energy. After that Geetha Navale performed with her group Esperanto. They played fusion music. The music was very different from what I've heard. We liked it a lot. Then a bangla group Oikyotaan played Baul music. They were good but performed for too long and ate into the time of other performers.
It was around 2ish and we decided to head home. We were to miss some nice Qawali, Sufi and rock music. At the parking lot we met some extra luggage and decided to give them a drop to Bangalore. So that made it two ppl in the front and seven in the back. Saurabh said that he used to manage to fit as many as 14 ppl in the back of his modified car. I clicked a lot of snaps which continued in the car. However Saurabh who was driving refused to turn his head for the snap, which left me pretty offended :-) However I forgot abt it as there was music in the air. We were also trying to rag the two college guys who we took on as extra luggage, who were in 11th standard. We were trying all things, in good humour, to get them to do what we wanted. However they didn't feel that they were kids and refused to give in. I then asked the so called kids to guess the age of Deepti and Neeti just to put things off balance maybe and see how they reacted. However the kids guessed their exact age and were spared. I then commented that maye they were a bit scared to say the actual age that popped up in their minds and as the words passed thru their mouths about 5-6 yrs were substracted to play it safe. Then there were counter comments on age and the chatting went on and on. Yeah, we spend most of our life thinking that what we do is the mature and right thing. We think we are right and no longer the kids that we used to be. But finally when we reach that stage of maturity and wisdom, which rarely comes for most ppl, we feel that we want to be kids again. So does that mean that we are all kids, be it mentally or mentally. Hmmm.
3 comments:
Oh you went for that fire flies thingie!! I so wanted to go too.. but well. Cudnt.
Java city is too tiny for the band, dont you think. They play well and play really nice songs, but with the accoustics they have in there you can barely hear your own voice and that bothers me.
Is there any other place in the city where they play live music?
That was me who deleted the prev comment.. had a spellin mistake in the earlier one :)
yeah Java city is a bit too tiny for the band...
you can try out live music at 'opus' which is karaoke place.
Also Alliance Francaise usually stages international artists. Jazz, classical music, gypsie music, instrumental (piano, violins, spanish guitar etc). I try to go for most performances. This year itself they have staged more than 10 international groups/artists.
The last I heard out there was some Arab Andulasian music which has its influences from muslim, christian and jewish music. This guy named Akim Sikameyah played the violin and sang. He was accompanied by his group. He sang in Arabic and french. Some very diff and nice soulful music..
I also heard some good Jazz by this french group called 'Le Chameleon'. The lead played an electric violin and then this other classical french group called 'Les solestes' joined them on violins... they played some real good music together...
SO IT WAS YOU GUYS WHO TURNED UP WITH A MATTRESS!!!! GOD, I DONT KNOW YOU PPL, BUT I LOVED THAT IDEA, AND GAVE YOUR GANG A NAME- THE LUXURY KINGS. I TOLD MY BUNCH OF FRIENDS THAT THE NEXT TIME WE SHOULD PERHAPS DO THE SAME... OR EVEN BETTER GET A COUCH :D.IT WAS AN AMAZING NIGHT WANT IT? WE COULDNT SIT BEYOND THE LADY WHO SANG THE HINSUSTANI NUMBER AT THE BREAK OF DAWN- IT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER, BUT IT THINK HER SELECTION OF SONGS WERENT TOO GREAT. WELL NICE STUMBLING INTO YOUR BLOG.
Post a Comment