In Concert ..

This weekend was unusally filled with loads of culture....my friends had come down from London and in their honour I booked tickets to a concert at the Banganga festival (hope i got the name right) in Walkeshwar...in true Mumbaite tradition I only got to see this part of the city cos of my foreign friends...it was a village in the middle of this concrete city...the streets were all so small and narrow that after a point of time you could only walk....and the venue was a big water tank which apparently came into existence when Ram fired an arrow into the ground when he was thirsty.........now who would have known that this financial city also had a brush of mythology to it............and as we walked along we spotted temples after temples..infact I saw so many of them that I thot maybe they are all homes of extremely religious people!!...and apparently there are 15 temples in the vicinity...well who knew that about Mumbai??

and the water tank was modestly decorated with flowers and streaming lights.....and to add a natural touch to the surrounding there were 7 ducks...who for some strange stood still for a good 30 minutes ...prompting all of us to speculate whether they were specifically imported for the concert or whether they were actually statutes....it was not until they swam (for safety?) when the concert started that we realised that the ducks were for real.........

the concert was by Hariprasad Chaurasia and I have to admit that I was really looking forward to it when i booked the tickets....but like my friend Jordi, for the first 15 mins of the concert I thot he was just warming up .....only to realise that, THAT was actually the performance...ofcourse the tempo picked up after a while, especially during the jugalbandi, and I started enjoying it then....unlike me most of my friends were deeply enthralled by the music and the surroundings... most of them closed their eyes to take in the music even better...ofcourse I did the exact same thing too...except it was to sleep...and my sneaky friend Juhi took a picture of me sleeping ...if it werent for the fact that it is a decent picture of mine I would have totally deleted it.... I tried somewhat to salvage my reputation by stating that I liked stringed indian instruments better...but like a friend commented "you are the Jhinktak hindi song girl"...hmmm.....

Well no sweat....music is a very personal choice....and most people go through life not knowing what they like and what they dont like.....at least I know I am not a flute person.....and at least I am trying..the next brand of music that i want to try to get know is sufi music.....dont know enough of that yet but think that is more my style....

so here's to more music in everybody's lives this new year...