12 hours of music and much more

What started out as a quest to experience something new, ended up being a magical night that I would remember for a long long time. The heady cocktail of different kinds of music, the ambience and the crowd is nothing short of being unforgettable.

The all night music festival is an annual event conducted by fire flies international. They have a theme every year and this year’s was, working towards a greener planet. I thought the idea of reaching out to the youngsters for a much greater cause, in a language they would understand was just brilliant. The event is conducted every year at the fire flies ashram. The ashram is in a village far away from the city, which helps retreat from all the harsh realities of the world to touch something much deeper in your soul….

An old banyan tree was the focal point of all the “happenings” of the night. And it glowed with all the attention it so aptly received. It was surrounded by an amphitheatre with sitting of not so even, unpolished stone - it just added to the beauty of the place. We were welcomed with some classical Kannada music which I couldn’t understand. To be honest I didn’t listen to much of it, since we were busy hunting for a place to plonk ourselves for the evening. We finally found a place from where the view of the stage was good after some five shifts. We decided that all of us would just be content with what we had rather than move around anymore. The decision came at a right time, since next on the list was a classical performance with a twist.

The group incorporated an Indonesian instrument called the Angklung. It’s made of bamboo and needs to be played with two other bamboo sticks. It was nice to see the use of this Indonesian instrument with pure Indian classical music. In fact, most of the night was confluence diverse cultures in the form of their music, whether it be this classical piece, or the dohas from Kabir so beautifully put together in Sufi music by Shabnam Virmani or the folk rock by Swaratma.

Swaratma… hmmm.. they took like a good 30 minutes to set up their system with constant request to someone called Dinkar to “up”or “down” or “cut out” either the violin or the guitar. They were a crazily dressed bunch though, completely living up to their “rock band” image. They sang in hindi and mixed some nice messages with rock music. My friend tells me, they sang the same songs last year too.. a tad disappointing for her, but not for me…

Shabnam Virmani is someone who I will not be able to forget in a long time. She mesmerized the audience with her voice and her compositions of the dohas. You could make out that she was a favourite by gauging the reaction of the audience. Her connect to the audience was brilliant and what helped even more was her explanation of the dohas.

How can I not mention this person called Prakash Sontakke. His group played fusion music with the Hawaiian guitar, tabla, mridangam and the drums coming together to create music. What struck all of us however was his attitude. He started of playing this beautiful piece of music and when the audience applauded said that it was played to show he was tired!! His one-liners mixed with dry wit and sarcasm were amazing, not to mention his almost pleading the audience to send some pictures of the performance to his email id. I am sure all of us remember the id even now.
I also heard this highly enthusiastic and energetic group from Kerala perform. They are supposed to be India’s only bamboo band. Their enthusiasm got the already “high on music and ….” crowd to its feet, despite none of us understanding what they were singing.

A group of just singers came on the stage. The highlight of that group was this one guy who would take out drum beats from his mouth. So they had no musical instruments but some amazing song and music. After initially booing down the group since it had softer music, the crowd begged for more from that one guy. He actually played out a DJ mix without any instrument. Some effort that would be!!

Speaking of the crowd, I was impressed by the younger Bangaloreans wanting to hear anything other that club music. The place was crowded with people prepared for an all nighter. I saw people who’d come with pillows, mattresses, sheets, blankets and even emergency lights!! And for some the motivation was alcohol and cigarettes. We had these two guys sitting in front of us well stocked with whiskey, soda, water and a never ending supply of cigarettes. One of them didn’t move an inch through the night :-)

Coming back to music, they also had Qawalli which I was disappointed with. The group missed the energy which is required for qawalli. Or maybe it was the expectations that were set, since last year the qawalli was supposed to be really good.

That’s when we realized that we’d been sitting for close to 8 hrs and needed a walk. We went around the stalls to look at some really good jewellery (girls yes!!) and had some strong tea to give us some warmth. We welcomed the dawn with some soulful fusion of the Veena, mouth organ and the guitar. And though the musical strings pulled us to stay back a little longer, we knew it was time to get back to reality and head to the city….

It’s an experience for which words are few and needs to be experienced to understand the connect it has with you. I can’t thank my friend enough for the 12 hrs of music she introduced me to.

PS: Fire flies does not publicize the event and its spread through word of mouth. You can however visit the website http://pipaltree.org.in/ for details.

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Blue, Blue and more Blue…..

Lakshadweep’s been on my list of places to visit for a very long time and going there for my honeymoon just happened to be an added bonus (thanks A). It’s been 3 weeks after I have come back and the hang over still continues!!

My first impression of Lakshadweep was – Wow!! I have been to a lot of beaches, but have never seen something like it before (for once the travel brochures weren’t wrong). The white sand beaches with crystal clear blue water just took my breath away. Speaking of blue, my definition of “sea blue” has undergone a change now. There can be so many types of sea blue – the light/sky blue, the greenish blue, royal blue, ink blue, etc. I got to see all of those colors in the water there- all in a span of a 2 km radius!!

Let me keep the raving for later and start from the start :-). We stayed at the Agatti resorts which is govt. run and the only resort on the island. Agatti has the highest population among the island (of about 8000 people). It’s also the only island with an air strip. Statistics apart, it’s a beautiful place. The beauty of the island hits you while walking from the airport and just the feeling of awe just stays with you for days to come. We started the trip with what the rest of the tourists were doing – sun bathing!! I cannot imagine having so much fun lazing around in the sun and doing nothing but stare at the water and the turtles in it. To my surprise I enjoyed it; maybe it was the rest from the constant mode of doing something, whatever it was, the rest and the remote place worked for me. Apart from all the lazing around and being total beach bums, we also went coral reef watching and spotting turtles. It was really nice to see such an amalgamation of colour in the reef and the fishes. We saw all types of colored fishes (I thought they existed only in aquariums). After the first day of learning to spot turtles, I saw so many of them swimming/eating very close to the shore. The highlight of my trip was to see them not being afraid of human beings. It was also good to see that us human beings respected them and left them alone.

The other highlight of my holiday was the visit to Bangaram. Bangaram is one of the 35 islands in Lakshadweep and has only a private resort. So why visit it? Its one of the most beautiful places I have seen till now (and I have seen many). It’s breathtaking!! That’s the only way to describe the place. The waters that surround the island have so many different shades of blue due to the varying depth of water. During low tide you can even walk from one island to the other with water just touching your ankles. The place is a vision, but the highlight of the trip was the boat ride to Bangaram. We went in a small fishing trawler crossing the high seas in the opposite direction of the winds, when it was very windy. Well, the less said the better, but at one stage I thought we would topple over. What bugged me was the boatmen and A enjoying looking at the worried look on my face. A especially since he doesn’t even know to swim. I wasn’t scared of drowning (I know how to swim) and neither was I scared that A would drown. There was enough supply of life jackets to save him till help came and the water wasn’t cold either. I was scared for my camera. I knew toppling over would mean death of my buddy (yeah I am in love with my camera). Anyways, nothing happened apart from me being the butt of jokes!!

The good thing about my vacation was that I got a chance to visit the village in Agatti, even if it was in the pretext of visiting the hospital. It was very quaint with coconut strewn all over. We got to know that the auto we went in was the only auto on the island! I also met a German couple who ran the diving school in Agatti. For 9 months in a year, they stay in India and the rest monsoon months in Germany. They’ve been here for more than 10 years and that’s the job – scuba diving and teaching people to scuba dive. I was so envious. I wish I had a cool job where I could actually make money out of a hobby!!

Tips:
# You can go to Lakshadweep by ship. However incase you plan to travel by ship, make sure you are flexible with your travel dates. The ship schedule is most likely to change last minute.
# Always plan to either visit or stay in Bangaram. Bangaram is much more expensive than Agatti. However it’s completely worth staying there at least for a day.
# Alcohol is prohibited in Agatti. Another reason to visit Bangaram :-).
# Be prepared to get used to salt water. Its in the sea and your bathrooms.
# If you know Malayalam, use all of it there. Since most of the tourists are foreigners, the locals completely like Indian tourists and if you are Mallu you are adored!

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