Wah Ustaad Wah!

Jan 11, monday (around midnight): Dunno why, but I suddenly feel like going for a Zakir Hussain concert. I start checking the web for any links to a concert I could go to. The official website only talked about his tours in Oct(in the US of A); of which the last two concerts were canceled due to his mother's demise.

Jan 12, tuesday(around 530pm): I get a mail at my office which said there was a Zakir Hussain concert, in pune, on friday! What coincidence!

20 seconds and 900 amdocs club points later: I've registered for the concert, without any second thoughts.

Jan 15th, Friday: I left office at around 6, with Soumitra. He too, like me had joined amdocs last year. We hired an auto from Magarpatta city which cost us 90 bucks and 30 minutes to reach the venue: MES Abasaheb Garware College Ground. Hundreds of cars on both sides of the road outside the college, told us that the ground is gonna be crowded. We were lucky the concert hadnt yet started. They were just having a presentation about the Maharastra Education Society, which was conducting the concert; celebrating 150 years of its existence. Few minutes later the stage was handed over to Zakir Hussain and Sabir Khan. Sabir Khan had played sarangi in great musical hits like Jodha Akbar, Saawariya, and Chameli.

First Sabir Khan started off with his sarangi, and the Ustaad followed in later. They started off slow first, but within a few minutes their fingers started to move at such a fast pace that the crowd was totally mesmerized. You could hear so many "Ohhooo"s, "Wah"s and "Kya baat hai"s around. Zakir Hussain then started to create many situations using his tabla. He first showed with his tabla, shiva's 'dumroo' and his disciples blowing the conch shell (creating the sound of the conch shell using tabla was simply awesome and unbelievable). And then he took us into a train and its compartments. Few minutes later he produced the sound of rain, clouds and thunder, then a deer running in a forest. The crowd was clapping most of the time; if not they were stunned hearing the sounds. I never knew so many sounds could be created from that simple hollow percussion instrument. And Sabir Khan too is a great talent. He played the Sarangi really well. There were times when Zakir Hussain would go slow on his Tabla and Sabir Khan would start showcasing his endowment.

Zakir Hussain played the tabla so well and at times so fast that it would seem like two or more people were playing at the same time. You would even doubt a musician or a tape playing on the backstage.

It went on non-stop for more than an hour an a half. And during the time he forced out three words from almost everyone present there,
"Wah Ustaad!! Wah!!"

PS: This is my first post this year....so a very happy new year to all the readers!

KK concert on magarpatta city day

Every year on the 3rd of december, Magarpatta city celebrates 'Magarpatta City Day' and today marked the completion of a decade.[Magarpatta city is an IT park cum residential area, where my office too is located.] As part of the celebration, there was a live concert by playback singer KK.

The show was supposed to start at 7pm. I had initially decided not to go for the show, but Prashant, my group lead, had left an extra pass that he had with me. So at 10 to 7, I left for the concert with ratan. As we entered there were thousands of chairs in front. And our pass lead us to seats that were pretty far from the stage, so we had to depend on the huge screens next to the stage; but when you watch a concert for free, you don't have much of a say, do you? ;)

The show began in a few mins. He performed many hit songs like "Tu Aashiqui Hai" from Jhankaar Beats, "Pyaar ke Pal" from Pal, "Dus Bahaane", "Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai" from the movie Gangster, "Mera Pehla Pehla Pyaar", "Alvida" from Life in a Metro, "Kya Mujhe Pyaar Hai" from Woh Lamhe and "Yaaron" from Rockford and few more. He is a really good singer and a good performer too. I woudn't say it was better than the Shan or Shanker Mahadevan concerts we had at college; but it was definitely worth every penny i paid the time.

Here are a couple of videos I found on youtube...(the audio is not very clear here...but will never be if u shoot a live concert on an amateur cam :P)

"Alvida"-Life in a Metro.

"O Humdum Soniyo Re" - Saathiya

PS: During the break, Satish Magar, the brain behind the magarpatta city project, made a few announcements; mostly regarding few plans to be implemented here in the near future. The last one was what interested most people sitting there. The multiplex giants of Latin America, Cinepolis, had taken up a project to build a multiplex in magarpatta city... and it would sport 15 screens! And it is expected to be complete in around a year's time!

Pranav Mistry and the 'SixthSense' technology

Had some problem with the net connection yesterday. So embedding the video now. No intro... just watch it!



PS: Source

Kaala Akshar Bhains Baraabar

Got this as an email forward. An innovative literacy campaign indeed! :)

I love fridays...more

2012, the much awaited movie of Roland Emmerich, is releasing tomorrow. In the evening at office today, Rama asked Ratan and me if we wanted to go for tomorrow after work. But as our whole team was going out for dinner tomorrow night, we couldn't book tickets for friday and hence we decided that we'd go for the first show the day after tomorrow. The show was at 10am in Fame Cinemas. Rama was assigned the task of booking the tickets and Ratan and I went back to work.

After sometime, I hear Ratan shouting at Rama. The reason?
He'd just got an email that read "Mr. Ramakrishna Pathuri has invited you for the Movie 2012 (U/A). Show Date: Fri, 13 Nov, 2009" :)

Rama had by mistake booked the tickets for the show tomorrow morning. He tried canceling the ticket, but without success. Looks like Fri, the 13th isnt that unlucky for me. With the movie and the dinner, its the best friday at office so far! At office?!