(11 May ‘09)
We got an invitation to
attend the Concert for Change (Be the Change You Want to See) at the big
Andheri Sports Complex, and I said yes-yes-yes, because at our/my age you/we
don’t get to attend such events, forget invites, and Kailash Kher was going to
sing. I like music, but never know who has sung/written/invented/created a
song. In Kailash Kher’s case, I was six feet away from him when he sang at a
private dinner. What was I doing there? Yea, am still wondering. All four feet
of him burst into full volume on the first note. The curly, shoulder length
locks were tossed this side and that. And the room echoed with clear tone,
super singing. There was no orchestra, just a keyboard accompanist and I
thought this concert was a bigger version of that scene. How naïve could I have
been.
When we reached at
five, the sun was still up and the program had begun. The large stage with the
fancy red, purple and silver lights, the large screen at the back and the small
one at the side had come alive. The crowd wasn’t more than two hundred, which
meant ‘but a handful’ considering this was a stadium. Our VIP enclosure had
less than 50 persons, mostly parents of participants, I guessed. We had to
stand. I took my place where I could lean against something, expecting that ‘the
crowd’ was yet to arrive. I needn’t have bothered. By sundown, it had ‘swelled’
to triple that number, not much again, considering the size of the venue and
the advertisements.
The competition was
between weirdly dressed men (and a woman) making shrieking sounds. I kept
reminding myself that I must have an open mind to modern music, that when I
went to Malawli (the Indian version of Woodstock) decades ago, my parents
thought the same of the guitar-wielding, pony-tailed, bell-bottomed ‘hippies’
and their music. But no, shrieks are shrieks in any era. These were wordless
ones. The noises that came from the mike had no words. I concentrated really
hard, so I know that.
The compere, VJ Juhi, through whom we’d been
invited, was good enough for me to watch. My eternal favourite, Lolla Kutty,
made my evening. Her shiny blue sari, her glasses, her flower-bedecked hair and
her wonderful Malloo accent kept me happy for a while. I learnt that her real
name was Anu Menon. That was the only thing I learnt that evening.
By 8, I was hungry in
spite of the fact that, after coming home an hour earlier than usual from work,
I’d had a proper dinner of missal-pao and lassi before leaving for the concert.
Why do I keep calling it concert? Cacophony meet would be more like it.
We went to sit on the
deserted stands. It felt breezy, detached, and comfortable. The single
soft-drink stall below us attracted the young crowd constantly. The comperes
kept reminding us of how we must ‘be the change we want to see’, about exercising
our rights, the RTI act, voting, etc. Not a word about our responsibilities,
about not littering the area with plastic bottles, discarded Channel V
pamphlets, wrappings, spitting, and more. Certainly not a word about noise
pollution.
Bhappi Lahiri, in his
gold chains and glittering coat, his enormous bulk and voice to match, held our
attention somewhat. It was past 9:30 when Kailash Kher came on-stage. I wanted
to hear Allah ke Bandhe. He disappointed me. He was in the mood to promote his
album-to-be and sang songs I hadn’t heard and now don’t want to, ever.
Disappointed. 10 was mikes-out time and the show was over.
Did I not enjoy it at all? I carried home one exciting memory: that of a
tall cameraman toting his heavy tool like an AK-47, squinting on 2 sq inches of
screen to check where his lens was aimed, concentrating on the artists’ ears,
elbows, necks, nostrils…followed by a short, plump flunky whose job was to jog
behind him, making sure he didn’t trip on the wires or fall over the edge of
the stage. Their moves were quick, fascinating. Equally smooth and graceful was
the big crane, again part of the visual team, that swung fast and ever so
gracefully over the crowd, making the couple of hundred arms and heads appear
like there were 1000s as the newspaper headlines said the next day.
Yes, it was a novel evening, though I wonder whether I would go to such
an event again. Free, maybe; with priced tickets, never.
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