Urja, THE FUSION X’PERIENCE

Urja, THE FUSION X’PERIENCE
12th Jan. 2008
Venue : Dadoji Kondeo Stadium, Thane
Time : 6.30 P.M.

Performers:
Ustad Zakir Hussain – Tabla
Niladri Kumar – Sitar
Rakesh Chaurasia – Flute
Taufiq Qureshi – Percussion/ Drum

5 Eminent personalities Felicitated:
Darsheel Safary
Shankar Mahadevan
Sudha Murthy

This was the Second Concert I attended in my whole life.

Ustad Zakir Hussain, the Tabla Maestro was simply amazing, awesome ……………

Basically I would not like to hear anyone playing Sitar because that’s too boring for me. But this guy Niladri Kumar (Son of Sitar Maestro Pandit Kartick Kumar) was playing it like a Rock-Star. It was first time in my life that I saw a Sitar player playing it that fast. Rakesh Chaurasia (Nephew of Flute Maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia) was playing the mystical Flute. I closed my eyes and felt as if I was standing near a river bank, and my friend felt the same way. Taufiq Qureshi (Youngest son of the legendary tabla maestro Ustad Allahrakha and brother of the World famous Tabla wizard Ustad Zakir Hussain) was Mind-Blowing.

The whole experience was “Out of the World” and specially when am overloaded with many things this whole year with no time for fun, this was relief.

The company also mattered a lot; believe me! Even boring films seem to be exciting when I am with this special person, so imagine the experience I had in those precious moments.

My Mom and Bro both were laughing at me when I told them that am going for a Classical Concert. The Trivia being – It was some 13/14 years ago. Me my parents and my bro were in thane shopping like anything. It was 11pm and that’s late. We were near Gadkari Rangayatan, and it started raining heavily. We were half an hour late for the show, so there were no rikshaws outsite. Our hands were occupied with bags. So to pass the time we decided to watch anything that’s playing in the Theater. That was Hridayanath Mangeshkar’s (brother of Lata Mangeshkar) Classical Concert (Vocal). From the starting onwards my parents kept telling me and my bro, that this will be fun. Later we all started looking at each other's face and within an hour we were out of that theater. Luckily we got a rikshaw. And after reaching home, again we started looking at each other's face. It was understood that each one was taking an oath that they will never attend a classical concert in their life, especially vocal.

Although my brother was laughing initially, but when I started telling him about my experience, he agreed to it. And that’s because he was returning home form work and he passed by the venue, he stopped his bike and was listening to jugalbandi between Ustad Zakir Hussain and Niladri Kumar.

Now I think I will attend a Rock Concert.

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