The Threshold of Coolidity

With a couple of days left for our show scheduled for November 1^st, the day of Diwali, our songlist took shape. We had everything in there. Two original compositions Dil Chahne Laga, and Seven Years (always proud to show them off), well tested covers such as Neele neele ambar and Dum maro dum, new covers with Taal se taal showing off our percussion skills powered by Beer and Bheeshma, and Bullah ki jana flaunting our ability to incorporate yet another language (English, hindi, and telegu yeah telegu our previous language conquests). Last but not the least, we had our instrumental To Thy Kingdom Come which was tributed to Ram’s return from exile when it was composed; couldn’t be a more appropriate scenario to play it for the first time on stage.

As the day drew near, band members took it upon themselves to pimp the show. Tuesday was a bit of a concern. Would be able to draw more than just our friends? (Aside: Bands with radio contracts pull a whooping 20 people on Phat Friday shows: Aside aside: 4 of the 20 are Beer, Ben, Anu and me) So, everyone told their friends, labmates … I decided to take it one step further. I started making chit-chat with people I don’t really know (shame on me!), Raj and me spent time sending out our show details to giant mailing lists using his SCI connection. We were set in my opinion to pull at least 60 people.

As showtime approached we hauled gear over to the Nyumburu center where the undergrads performing bhajans had already started camping. The bhajans started. So, all you guys n girls who have lived in India must have sometime or the other seen an abla (girl) been harassed, well this was the time we all saw a tabla get molested. Yup, undergrad boy borrowed our tabla and well to put it gently “violated it in public”. Means, if a tabla could speak, it would shriek “What the fuck are you doing? Is this your first time?” And when Om Jay started tabla virgin spanked the tabla as if he were playing to jhankar beats! All the while Bheeshma went from concern, to worry, to pain, to agony, to almost fainting before the show!

Anyways, when the murder stopped, we were set to hit the stage. The tabla was still playable, and as we started tuning I learnt some lessons. I always thought it would be awesome to grab undergrad attention. Well, Diwali was the day I packed that desire away, and happily too. Undergrads love Bhajans. The moment the bhajans ended most of them exited. I have nothing against Bhajans but given that I was an undergrad in the same country I don’t ever recall saying “Oh no! now we have to go home coz the bhajans are over!” But the most beautiful lesson happened throughout dinner and tuning. As I stood up there playing a coupla notes to entertain people before the show started, I noticed that every single person I knew and had invited walked through the door with several of their friends I had never met. On the other hand, mailing lists where I sent out invits to a thousand unknown people yielded maybe 2 audience members. Now those 2 count, but again, if you want to put in effort, just call one friend and you'll be rewarded for it.

Again a short paragraph to sum up an awesome show; there were some usual sound problems, but the show in my opinion was nothing short of all we could hope for. Sayonee gave us a smashing start, Mathangi’s Dum maro dum floored the men and yielded our first encore! Raj gained a few female fans (triple F’s?) during our rendition of Bullah, where I hummed notes of the tougher part near him to check scale, and ended up looking like I had some desire to whisper in my roommates ears ..oooops. Bullah earned us our second encore. But, the biggest reward for me was when the reports came in that besides these favorites our own compositions sounded the best! Another zone where we improved in was our presentation. Our first 3 shows I was rather disappointed with our showmanship, in particular talking to the crowd, so this time I decided to do it myself so that if it didn’t work out I could blame myself! But (hehe) no blame was needed! We introduced band members, songs; dedicated a song to our friends who were getting married soon, songs to band members far away, songs to the audience, and I claimed the Nyumburu Center to be Antardhwani’s Galee before we sang Kabhi Aana tu meri galee. I rock!

I believe that Antardhwani will be heard again live, but just in case that doesn’t work out closure just isn’t a problem anymore!