I just returned from one of the best weekends of my life... Full of music, learning, fun and masti :D Thanks to Krishnan Keshavan for inviting me over to Dombivili... For those who don't know, Krishnan is this really cool dude. Very very talented musician (he sings amazingly well and composes tunes that you just cant get out of your head. They send waves of bliss flowing down you every time you hear one of them...) and one of the leads of The Bhakti Band (http://www.bhaktitheconcert.com/)
Its been a long time since I last posted something here. I thought this would be a good experience to share... Life was going on as usual; same arbit schedules of the average IITian, sleepless nights, snoring in classes, hanging out in Rahul's room (amazing view... He stays in the new hostel of IITB on the 6th floor) or Mugdha's lab at night, generally running around the campus doing arbit stuff, making plans to get up early every morning and making full use of the snooze facility etc... The latest YES!+ with Rashmin Bhaiya recently ended and 25 odd people became much happier, more content and more capable of living a happy and stress free life... :D
Then came the Ganesh Utsav and a five day holiday from acads!!! (5 days assuming a friday bunk in between... Taken for granted ;) ) I had made great plans to go ahead of what my profs are teaching... :P hahahahahahhahaha :D I'll never make the mistake of making such mindless stupid hopeless plans again... Energy may or may not be conserved in this universe... But students (if this doesn't apply to you, please stop reading my blog) can never go ahead of what their profs are teaching. You just cant find time no matter how many holidays in between you get. There's probably some law preventing this. The universe will conspire against you if you make such plans. Manage your time extremely well, use all the "free time" (defined: the time when the only option you have other than sitting and studying is sitting and staring at you nails) you have to actually study and you "might" be on par with what your profs are teaching... (again, if this doesn't apply to you, please stop reading this blog... :P ) Same thing happened to me... Wednesday went peacefully. Got up late after the 6 days of the YES!+ course, played guitar, studied for "some" time, chilled with friends etc... I got a call from Krishnan telling me he needs a guitarist for a satsang in Mulund. Now, I am a beginner guitarist. The maximum crowd in which I've played is around 20 people in our weekly IIT satsangs. And that too, I only manage to play few songs and had very limited knowledge of scales. I could never play unfamiliar songs impromptu. I told Krishnan that Im just a beginner, but he convinced me to show up. I ditched the IIT satsang (missed an awesome session with Rashmin Bhaiya, I was told later... But Im still happy I went.. :) ) and went to Mulund with Pramod Bhaiya's guitar (he has a semi acoustic... I just have an acoustic guitar.. cant be plugged into an amplifier).
The Mulund satsang was a new experience for me. First time I would be playing guitar on the stage, with real professionals. There was a professional keyboardist who was hired from somewhere. Krishnan on the vocals and few other talented singers. Amazing percussionists (tabla and djambe)... Just me from the beginner category. Luckily, my guitar dint get plugged in and the mike they kept in front of the guitar wasnt so effective. I was for all practical purposes playing just for myself :P and was only very faintly audible to the audience. So it wasnt so testing and I managed to pull it off with very few glitches. Playing on stage with professionals is a really challenging task. It needs extreme awareness and immense concentration... especially with a singer like Krishnan who raises the energy of the song so high and the beats get extremely fast. The experience was very painful and rewarding at the same time. I did goof up slightly at few instances, but managed to cover it up without making it noticable, thanks to the loud cover of the keyboard :). This was my first feel of a public satsang, with new songs and a totally new atmosphere altogether. Im very very grateful for such an experience. I learnt everything the easy way without having to go through any embarrassing situations on stage. After this, I got some confidence and realized that I'm not that bad a guitar player after all :D... Krishnan called me again to a satsang in Dombivili for the weekend and I just had to accept it... :) Once again, thanks to Krishnan for giving me this opportunity.
While returning, I was at kanjur marg looking for an auto to IIT. I saw a guy getting into an auto saying Hiranandani. I immediately ran after him and asked if he would drop me at the IIT main Gate. He said yes. We had a nice long conversation during the drive. He was into analyzing loan repayment capacities or something like that. He had met a lot of IITians and had a lot to share. We discussed finance, MBA, careers, IIT life, life outside and other things. I took his card and we bid goodbye.
We (me, Rahul and others) had a plan of going to Essel World on Saturday, but it got ditched due to unforeseen circumstances. So saturday, after lunch I left for Krishnan's house with my guitar and a change of clothes (plan was to stay overnight and return after the sunday satsang). I left at 3.30, but dint get an auto for a very long time. I saw an auto outside the main gate and a guy sitting in it. Many people go from IIT go to Kanjur Marg, so I just asked him if he was heading over to Kanjur Marg. He was going to Ghatkopar. I asked him if he could drop me to Ghatkopar station... His house turned out to be very near the station. So I went with him to Ghatkopar station. Again, had a nice long conversation with him about this and that. He turned out to be a final year PhD student in IIT. He too had done the YES!+ course. He said he loved it. But he had lost touch with the practices. He was really interested in getting back in touch and said he would repeat the course whenever he got the time. After ensuring he was on the mailing list, I bid him goodbye and soon was on a slow local to dombivili. I was worried I would be late as Krishnan had said satsang was at 5... :P Finally it started at 7.45. The time given was 7.30. At 5 there were some pujas there.
In the train, I met this awesome guy from Hyderabad. He was all drunk, though he was fairly conscious. He started talking about his life, wife and her family. He spoke about his job, mother in law, his brother and many other things. He had an awesome attitude. He kept saying "life me tension nhn leneka. Me bilkul tension nhn leta hun... me aisa hi hun. meri saas ko bahut problem hota hai iske waje se..." and more on those lines.. He said," maine biwi ko bola hai ki raat ko 9 baje aunga. par 5.30 tak pahunch jaunga. sahi time batao toh message pe message aega. aur meri biwi punjabi hai. Punjabiyon ka dimag hamesha bht garam rehta hai... sambhalna padta hai..." He narrated few incidents to illustrate his points. It was fun chatting with him (though I mostly listened while he spoke... :P u can never interrupt a girl on the phone or a drunk guy talking about his mother in law... )
After this interesting experience, I reached Krishnan's house by around 5.20. There he said me that the satsang is actually at 7.30 :P We had some time to practice etc... So we jammed a little. He gave me few tips here and there. I fixed my scale and timing. This satsang, I was the only accompaniment apart from percussion. So I couldn't hide behind the keyboard like last time!!! :P
And Krishnan, like a true professional, does a lot of improvisation and nothing is really planned on paper in his satsang. He moves with the flow. I was worried how it would go... I managed to pull it off :D No flaws... Krishnan blew everyone off with his amazing energetic voice... Everyone were dancing and singing loudly... It was lovely... And after the satsang, many people came to me and praised my guitar playing... Felt new and nice :D I gained more confidence on my guitar. We returned to Krishnan's house and chatted for some time. Krishnan's mom fed us really awesome rice, rasam etc... Home made food, that too south India food :D :D :D... reminded me of my home... Aunty too chatted with us for a while... After a good night's sleep, we got up; I did a bit of studying (had to... :P lots left over), we did a lot of jamming, came up with some amazing tunes ( I got to see a lot of Krishnan's talent this weekend :D the guy rocks.... \m/ ) watched videos of masters in action (Hariharan, Shankar Mahadevan etc...) chatted about this and that and then went for the satsang again in the evening. This time, I was more confident. I was able to play more fluently than before. Though, one of the female singers started singing, I couldn't identify her scale. Covered it with some other scale, but I wasn't satisfied... Neither was Krishnan... But at that point, neither of us could identify the scale. Apart from that one song, everything else was top class... :D People loved it. Again they jumped with joy, sang out, danced and rejoiced... Felt awesome to see that while playing the guitar to Krishnan's singing.
Again my guitar playing was much appreciated (turns out that glitch in identifying the scale was not noticed by people \m/ :) ) and I left Dombivili to Mugdha's house. Krishnan had to leave for another satsang immediately... I went to Mugdha's house, arrived just in time for the Aarti... :D Had an awesome dinner there with her, Pramod Bhaiya and few of her relatives. Then we left for IIT...
It was an amazing weekend for me :D I feel I have progressed a lot as a guitar player, thanks to Krishnan, for giving me the opportunity and experience and sharing his knowledge with me... I had a great time at Dombivili with the DOmbivili Idol, Krishnan Keshavan and I'm eagerly looking forward to the next time I get to play with him for a satsang :D
All the best for all your endeavors.... :D
