Monday, September 12, 2005

The Month that was ...

Its been a really long time since I have come to this side of the world. There were a lot of times when I felt like writing, like after I attended the worst of them all concert, the one by Coldplay. I still feel guilty about taking a couple of my friends there. It was their first concert and they must sure be hating me for it. Though the one thing that I knew for sure about them has been proved without a shadow of a doubt now, which is that, they are very forgiving and kind hearted - proof: I am still alive with all my bones intact.

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Second occasion when I felt like writing was when I was following a England - Wales world cup qualifying game on soccernet. The guy who writes that thing has got a really wild and totally happening sense of humor. On that day I actually did write something, but for some stupid reason everything was deleted before I could publish it. I wont go into the details but I will just tell you that I use windows, I guess that explains everything.

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Before I go ahead and give the most shocking news to most of my friends I want to just bow down to Agassi. I think he is just amazing, at age 35 he is totally rocking the tennis arena. I agree with Federer being the best and all, but Agassi is not about being the best player on the court or about winning. He is about being the epitome of sportsmanship, as I read somewhere "He does not deny his age, he just defies it". He is a true legend and my favorite tennis player of all time and pretty close to being the best sports person, though I still rate Steve Waugh as the best. I felt sad that he lost (though it was expected), but I am just happy he is still playing.

Now to the shocking news. Yesterday I was at a close to five hour long carnatic concert by none other than Dr. K. Yesudas. Yes, you read it right. I was at a Carnatic Music Concert. A month ago Dalal told me about this concert and I was like let me just go there and see what's it all about, its only 10$. Yes I agree that was cheap, but that was indeed my thought process since I have almost next to nothing knowledge of Carnatic music. I listen to a few instrumental pieces here and there, that's it. There was a lot of drama there though, with flight delays, lost instruments, fire alarm before the concert got on the way. Almost an hour and half late, and for the impatient me I took it pretty well. But once it got started, it was just out of the world experience. I don't know the intricacies of the raagas and even though I got some gyaan from mostly Dalal and bit from Nithya, I would say I was ignorant. In spite of my ignorance the music was just mind blowing, that guy (no offense to Dr. Yesudas) has amazing control over his voice box, what range and what modulation. I was just awe struck for 5 hours, the time just flew. Total bliss and when he played the Raagam Thanam Pallavi it was ecstatic. As Dalal rightly put, it was like Floyd playing Shine on you Crazy Diamond live. Those of you who follow Floyd would know the feeling. I could just go on and on, but I would end it with one other thing that I was amused by apart from his music. For his age and fame, Yesudas has a very simple almost child like sense of humor and I was really impressed with that. Hopefully, I will get to see some more carnatic concerts, a kacheri (I don't know if that's how its spelt) at chennai would be amazing. Its like the Woodstock of carnatic music.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What went wrong with the coldplay concert man? Are they boring on stage or what? Like the Corrs who I hear have no stage presence at all, other than being goddamn hot looking, that is. ;-)

AJ said...

They are really boring on stage man, dont do anything different from the studio versions. They dont even have songs to head bang on, you cant sing along its like somewhere in the middle man, no man's land. To make the matters worse, that idiot chris martin was dancing and hopping around the stage like one of those boyband guys.