Saturday, April 16, 2011

A.R.Rahman special Hits concert - Dubai

I was as excited as ever to be a part of 'A.R.Rahman Special hits concert' that happened at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium last evening. Her divine voice just gets one spell bound every time she would strike a note. This was a show organized by Rahmanji's sister, Israth didi without the involvement of sir. As much as I longed for his presence the experience of working with Sivakumar sir (sound engineer) and Murthy sir (conductor) was incredible. To work with a man like him who is empowered with knowledge and experience, it was interesting to see his extreme sides. Hariharan, Sadhna Sargam and Benny were planning to rehearse only in Dubai.

Preparations for this show had begun ages ago and the wait just seemed forever. There were few funny moments during this journey such as Stephen Devassy being mistaken as M.S.Dhoni by a fan! Apparently a lot of people ask him for autographs in the name of MSD and now he's quite used to it!! Aaah.. The plight of being a famous musician only to have a striking resemblance to another ace cricketer! Another one is Vijay Prakash who seems to be an exact clone of singer Shaan only a little taller. Dr. Narayan has these amazing techniques of knowing how to make a happy happy song sound sober by changing a note or phrase. But the best one was Naresh's whole idea of starting a website called 'unwanted sangathis.com' when any of us would think too much out of the box. It happens when we sing those kind of songs where one is tempted to attempt it differently and ends up slipping down on its failure :) One more similarity that was discovered by me was Naresh's hairdo. Ditto Malinga!! Reminds me of CB's comment on how Malinga should endorse Maggie noodles :) Mummy bhook lagi hai .. Chetan Bhagat, are you listening ??

There was absolutely no time to shop or travel with hectic rehearsal schedules but thanks to Keba, the guitarist, I got to taste some amazing cheese cake! I just love to hear Keith anna's base interludes when everyone is busy taking a tea break .He's just fab and so is the flautist!

Dubai is amazing as ever. Was there after a gap of 6 years not to forget that 6 years back it was a mere road trip and this time I was there as a performer.


The show went pretty good and was blessed in the presence of Rahmanji's mother. It had drizzled a little during sound check and in between the show but thankfully that didn't encourage the outflow of crowd. Surprisingly I even met two fans of Outcast Vocals who claimed to have 6 videos of the show in their mobiles! Great to see the power of YouTube! A big hug to my pal , Phani Kalyan, because of I got to debut in Telugu with 'Pappu', who always encouraged and believed in my talent and to Faizji for playing a vital role in getting me this opportunity.

Monday, April 4, 2011

The World Cup is ours!!

Wow!! I really can't believe we won the World Cup! I belong to a category where I don't know half of the cricketer's name...but now I do. To hike up the spirits I went and got jerseys and stuffed our fridges with edible snacks to keep the non-fans interested too :) But the fact is that I lost interest the moment Sachin was out. I so badly wanted him to score a century. But eventually became enthusiastic to watch it partly because we were doing pretty ok...and partly because of Chetan Bhagat's super funny tweets! I had a ball laughing at all of them especially the one where he tweeted about how Maggie should be endorsing Malinga since he endorses the product :D and also about all the kids going 'mummy bhook lagi hai' when they see his yellow highlights :). As much as I hate making sarcastic comments on people or laughing at any, this man, Chetan is just too funny to ignore. And he sort of does it in a harmless way. Another funny tweet was how easy it is to gift Sreesanth a birthday gift- a comb!!! Ok ok.. I guess I need to stick to the topic now... I was checking out Android apps (which are ultra-cool) and got back to watching the match after I heard a lot of yelling and hooting. Something right was happening and so I decided to watch it for the sake of cheering. This is also the only match my sister would have sat throughout... talk about patriotism! The ONLY event where you can they see the whole of India united.

On one end a friend was consoling saying the real match is over when Indian won with Pakistan and this is just a for-the-sake-of-it match. On the other end I heard another friend supporting Srilanka for Jayewardene’s undeterred attitude towards doing the right thing at the right time! There were some funny moments where an uncle claimed to have seen the world cup win in his dreams and was just watching the game to prove he's right! Amidst all this action, my heart went out to the game when I saw Gambhir doing exceptionally well. Few minutes before Gambhir got into form, my whole timeline were filled with tweets of abusive nature and wotnot. I hope all these abusive people realize that they are not perfect and how sometimes a little bit of motivation can really boost the players at such a tight situation! Save your energy abusers... it's not the time yet! Anyhow, Gambhir and Dhoni had this amazing vibe on the field and kudos to them for their intelligent batting strategy. There was a look on Sangakkara's face towards the ending where he knew there was no chance but fought it through with dignity. That look is the look of an undefeated hero. They must have settled for a tea cup but they will still remain heroes for putting up such a tough fight.

Yuvraj Singh !! Whatta man! Just couple of months back he was slammed for being out of form and for being a party animal who is a total womanizer. At that time I was also angry with most of these players who kept partying during IPL series where Sachin, on the other hand, was sleeping early to remain in form. I thought it was the end of this guy but the way he got back and shone right throughout the world cup series is impeccable! Now that is exactly what I call success. The best part of this whole game was that a legacy is coming to an end and is being taken forward by the next worthy opponents. To have Sachin out was planned by God only to show that the future is as bright and shining as ever. The youngsters took over this game beautifully making the winning moment a dedication to the God of Cricket. It was the perfect way to tell Sachin that after him they will carry the responsibility with pride and dignity.
What a fantastic way to begin April 2011 and feels nice to not have to use the 83 video clips every time we discuss about the world cup. Need to pinch myself to see if this is all real...uh-oh!! Mummy bhook lagi hai :) ..Just saw Malinga on TV...thank you CB for making hairstyles a powerful appetizer :D