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.