The evening with Spirituality

The plan to go to this event was organized in a hurried manner. On Friday 3rd march night, my cousin brother calls me and tells that there is an event or rather a musical evening at Bhavans college Andheri of Shri Upendra Bhat. He said that he will go via ghatkopar so I could meet him there and we could go together to the venue. I told him that you can call nagesh also as he stays there only and even he could join us, to which he said “Is plan ka sutradhar to wohi hai”( The main organizer of this event is nagesh). I said ok and the next day on a conference we decided that I would come to andheri station directly and these people will be coming together from ghatkopar. The target time was 5:30 PM as the show was to start at 6:00 PM. I reached andheri at around 5:20 PM but the these people hadn’t reached there. On calling them I came to know they were at chakala and it would take another 20 min to reach there. So instead of waiting I decided to do some window shopping. The items that were there tempted me to buy some but I decided not to go for them. In the meanwhile they had reached andheri and were standing near the McDonalds. I joined them leaving my window shopping halfway. The Konqueror group meet again but this time only the three base members were there and a new entry to the group of Konquerors it was me, nagesh, abhijit and the new entry of ganesh. My bro introduced ganesh saying that even he’s from mangalore (my home town) and you people can chat about yourself. There on we moved to have sugarcane juice, and we thought of walking the distance rather than taking bus or rick, as we would reach there earlier than those.It was about 10 to 15 min walk and we enjoyed chatting with each other it was like abhi and nagesh were in their own world and me and ganesh in ours. We reached Bhavans college at around 6:10 PM and we noticed that there was a board saying that the program will start at 6:30 PM. Further moving on we say another board with the event timing 7:00 PM. The venue was good one and the place where Shri Upendra Bhat was to perform was next to a shiva temple and the next day being Mahashivaratri. It was a perfect thing to have a bhajana sahdya the evening before Mahashivaratri. The show only began after 7:20 PM. How could we forget one person we three share in common and I feel this persons venture surfaces when we meet together. The surrounding was too good for such an event with trees around, and birds had come to their nests after a long days work.

One person came on stage to introduce Shri Upendra Bhat who is a disciple of Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, a vocalist. His voice was like our famous radio personality Ameen Sayani. He went on to tell about this show and when it came to introduce Shri Upendra Bhat he was reading a manuscript (along with mistakes). When the show started the birds started to fly around and it looked like they were encircling the shiva temple and offering their prayers to him. The flock of birds looked like white waves in a sea. The whole environment had something spiritual and it had a soothing effect, all I had to do was close my eyes and feel it.
After a few songs we went out to have something and nagesh told that we could try vadapav as he had already certified it as good. We all had vadapav and returned back to the venue but our seat were occupied by somebody else, so we had to sit behind. After one bhajan the organizer thought of taking a break and everybody had gone for filling their stomach so did Shri Upendra Bhat. We had the opportunity to meet Bhatji as nagesh’s father knew him and he was there on the stage accompanying him. We had already filled our stomach and we had to wait there till other’s had finished their break. Meanwhile we got our seat back. After about 20 minutes the show resumed and Bhatji told that he has got a lot of request of songs from the people gathered. In the second half of the show he began with explaining the details of various ragas and how and when they are used. He went on to say that nowadays the Bollywood music industry takes music from classical background and those songs go on for a super duper hit.

The song Saa ni pa … Tu cheez badi hai mast ( from mohra) “Ye saab to hame pahile sikhaya jata hai, agar koyi naya vidhyarhti aata hai to haam usse yehi dete hai aur che mahina yahi seekhane ke liye batate hai” ( We are taught the same thing when we join to learn classical music, and when any new person joins we give him the same thing to learn for 6 months)

“I had asked a person what is the next line of Dhoom macha le dhoom and interestingly they couldn’t answer that, today’s music are not like the olden days music which can be remembered”

Continuing this he went on to sing bhajans that were requested Baje muraliya and even one kannada bhajan of “Namamma sharade..”

Finally the event came to an end at around 10:45 pm. We moved from there, all of the other people had to take a bus but I had to take a train. I stood in the line for the ticket and in the mean while this incident happened there.

There was foreigner lady standing there and probably waiting for somebody, and a local lady comes there and starts to talk with her, initially I thought it was something casual but it was something different, as the foreigner was using worse words with her. The local lady looked rather an illiterate lady and with some screws loose probably. The worst part was the area got crowded there and everybody was there enjoying the treat instead of saying the local lady to stop, somebody even took snaps of the verbal fight. Later a lady ventured to sort out the fight and yelled at the people saying “Yahan kya tamasha ho raha hai kya, Dusara kaam nahi hai kya aap logo ko ?” Is there a play going on, you people don’t have any other work or what? She came back as her husband was standing there in the line and narrated about the incident. The funniest part was a person who was totally drunk got the ticket and while moving went on to praise “You are correct madam” literally swaying here and there.

Amidst all these I had been calculating about the time of the last train to panvel from kurla, whether I’ll get a train or not. Finally I got a train from Andheri to Dadar and from there to Kurla reaching just in time to catch the last train to panvel that night at 12:15 am. I reached home at around 1:30 am.
All this time while traveling I was thinking about the two contrasting thing happened that night one was a splendid performance of Shri Upendra Bhat and the fight that happened at the railway station which was rather useless altogether and over that the public stand there having fun at the verbal fight.