It’s been over a month since I moved to Bengaluru and after hectic road tripping over the last three weeks, twice to Pune and once to Hyderabad over weekends, this weekend I chose to relax and unwind at my newfound one room accommodation.
Woke up in the morning on Saturday only to realise that I had nothing to do, no one to interact with and the day seemed longer than ever. Decided to spend time at the office, least you have the security folks to interact with between surfing. Had some fantastic Kannada meat curry for lunch, worked on a pending presentation, twitted, and it was evening. Time to head to my room, I said, and what do I do there?
Reached my room, smoked a couple of sticks, finished reading a newspaper, all these in over less than an hour. So to escape the boredom I put on my walking shoes and ventured out to nowhere.
How I miss my Bullet, I was thinking to myself walking across the 100 ft road Indira Nagar. Something caught my eye, and I walked a few steps backwards and what I see got me stranded, a live musical performance, right across the street in a hall. I said to myself, ‘Hey this should be interesting’. I walked towards the hall to read a board ‘Padmalaya Centre for Performing Arts’, as I got closer I saw 25 something people in the hall listening to the performance of 4 artists on the stage. One with a violin, one on vocals, one on dholak and one on harmonium. As I moved closer I saw people in their late 40’s and 50’s sitting across empty chairs strewn across the hall, a few kids doing the in & out rounds and their parents nodding their heads appreciating the music.
I moved cautiously towards the hall, I saw the chappals and shoes and sandals all strewn at the entrance of the hall, I realised I need to get my shoes off before I enter. The other thoughts that crossed my mind were, ‘Hey, am I supposed to get in, is it like a closed group performance, am I the only odd one out, does this have an entry fee’. While I was standing outside the hall door trying to answer all these questions, a gentleman in his fifties walked up to me and started speaking to me in Kannad, or that’s what I presumed. He gestured towards sitting inside the hall on one of the numerous empty chairs strewn across. I got the message, removed my shoes and settled down somewhere at the last chair towards the exitJ. The band was preparing for their next song and I was waiting eagerly as ever.
The next song started and I was enjoying the rhythm, though I could not understand a word of it. That I believe is the power of music, you don’t need to understand the language to enjoy the music. ‘Music’ as clichéd as it sounds overcomes the language barrier. From what I could gather it sounded like religious songs in the Karnatic music, and what mind blowing music it was. I am a fan of live performances and have missed a very few live performances of the international artists in India. This was one performance I would rank anywhere close to Mark Knopfler’s or Roger Water’s or Shakti’s performance I have heard. And that too, without preparing one bit for it. Wow, I said to myself. It made my evening and filled in the void.
The show ended in some time and I was mesmerised by the performance of some local artists whose family members I presume were a large part of that 25 something audience. I started back to my room wondering how much local talent we have across India and how little we know about it.
So this blog is dedicated to those local musicians and their art, hats off to their talent and we are indeed blessed to have them around, it saved my Saturday night, to say the least.
