“Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity” and if it’s the musical magician pulling the strings and striking the chords, you can feel a complete symphony inside your heart. Such is the scale of penetration that you almost lose touch with everything else in the world and get directly attached with your soul. It’s one of the rare times when you have a direct unbiased and free conversation with yourself.
Yesterday gave me one such occasion when I had the privilege to be in the spectators for a live concert by AR Rahman. The day started pretty early and it was very hectic to get in the ground and stay afloat in that burning heat. But it was a worth a wait since every bit of tiredness was washed away in hours to come and when I walked out of the ground I could feel no signs of fatigue.
The show started with a fanatastic music piece which combined Indian and western music master class. It set the perfect tone for the legend of AR Rahman to enter the arena. A dramatic entry and a punchy first line “Jage hai der tak” set the stage of fire. If ever I hadn’t paid attention to this fantastic song I did it yesterday and understood something more than what lyrics had to offer. This was followed by a fantastic Tamil dance number which unfortunately I can’t even pronounce.
Then came a part of underperformers where few new singers couldn’t match to the level of start AR had given to the show. First up was recent blockbuster “Ye Delhi Hai mere Yaar” sung by various artists and “Masakkali” by Raja hasan. Surly Raja hasan is no Mohit chouhan and asking him to perform this class act was way out of his league. He returned after a while for “Gujarish” originally sung by Javed Ali but was again no match to the original. In between that Hariharan came on stage with one of AR’s early hit and path breaking song “Roja Janeman”. This guy is a class act as he showed throughout the night and those slight variations from originals with one or two notes and pauses elongated were real gems. Then in came the surprise of the evening Blazay, a hardcore rapper who looked out of league with AR in terms of clothing and appearance but he made us all swing to his tunes throughout. Then came couple of low key song like dreams on fire and “Ring Ring Ringa” by Niti mohan and shweta pandit. They were both ok at best and nothing more.
Then AR came back with ever beautiful song “Dil Se” and that one really rocked man. This song got maximum response and once mores form the crowd and thankfully tempo set there was ably carried forward by everyone who came afterwards except for the “Genda phool” team which lacked all the coordination that was required.
Next up was the highest point of the evening when AR sat in a mahfil with Roop Kumar rathod, hariharan and Rashid ali. Hariharan rendered the love and pain in “Tu hi re” with ease and as always was bit more special and different in almost every node he sung. The gang had also given up all the loud instruments and music which meant lyrics stood out more and every word was properly rendered and heard. Hariharan followed this with a forgotten gem from 1947 earth named “Dhimi dhimi” and we again lived every alphabet of the lyrics with him.
Then it was turn of Roop kumar rathod to sing “Khamosh raat” from “Takshak”, another of AR’s lost gem. He was as usual fluent soothing silken and influential in conveying every bit of music and lyrics that song had to offer. Then the mike was handed to relatively inexperienced Rashid Ali who matched these heavyweights note to note with his super hit song “Kahin Toh”. The first line itself cleared all the fears of him not being able to match to these legends and rest as they say was history. AR then told crowd that next one is his favorite song and Hariharan started the iconic “Sarfaroshi Ki Tammanna”. If Sonu did a fantastic job in the original track, Hariharan was no less in the theatrical performance. He followed that with another beauty named “bharat humko” and as always we all felt proud about the home land.
Rashid Ali followed that mahfil with his highly popular “Kabhi Kabhi Aditi” and was again fantastic with his singing and his Guitar. As he left the stage AR was back this time with “Rahna Tu”. He sat there on stairs along with the chorus, carefully singing each and every word of the lyrics which in itself is a beauty and we could do nothing more than agreeing to every feeling he expressed. When he sung “Tu zakham de agar, Marham bhi aakar tu lagaaye, Zakham mein bhi mujhko pyaar aaye” we almost felt the same Zakham and pyar that he felt, and when he sung “Hath thaam chalna ho to…..” we almost walked hand in hand with our loved ones.
Next was my all time favourite song “Chupke Se” from sathiya and Sadhna sargam did a fantastic job as did a team which sang my fav part “Doston se jhooti mooti dusro ka name leke….” perfectly fine. Next was Niti Mohan sensation “Mayya Mayya” from Guru. She is rightly known as Indian shakira and boy she lived up to every bit of that reputation. Not only she sang well for almost 4/5th of the time but danced as good as any professional in the last part of song. Then came Blazay and Benni dayal with kala kala bundar followed by a thunderous DJ mix of all AR dance numbers. For first time in my life I felt DJ work could also require some class. The DJ mix fever was then topped by heavily loaded “Azeem O Shan” where I literally felt that thousands of warriors were singing this song for their emperor. This was followed by a high beat tamil number which also rocked big time.
Benni dayal then combined with Shweta pandit to render a classical “kaise mujhe tum”. The duo sang and danced with same fluency and had set a really romantic tone which was abruptly interrupted by an AR kavvali mahfil where he was accompanied by Raja hasan and moshrafe. AR first sang khwaja mere with supreme ease and raja hasan finally came to party when he sang “Arziyan Saari” pretty decently.
And then came the end and it was as grand and big as you want. All the singers combined together on stage to sing the new anthem “Jai Ho” which for very first time sounded sensational to me thanks to the loud clarity of each instrument played in it and it all ended with AR’s magical “Maa tujhe salam”. By then the levels had reached so high that I could almost feel my body shivering as I was trying to write down the final song in the sequence.
It took me another half an hour through the heavy traffic to finally come to terms with the ground reality. But by then I have been through a world that has no connection with earth and has unlimited freedom, emotions and energy which is fast drying out from our lives. Looking back, yes I felt that more songs and more artists could have made night more special but I still can’t take any credit away from Rahman for putting up a memorable show within limited resources.
It is said that “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent”. Yesterday Rahman reiterated this to everyone who might have started to lose track with it and yesterday I fell in love with music all over again.
