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| Taken from giphy.com |
"Dude you got a hair gel! You otherwise miser!", shouted my roommate as he discovered my secret stash of self-care items.
"I am not going there and I reckon you not too", I told him as I tried to snatch away my things.
"I don't understand why you despise such shows so much. It's such an exhilarating, adrenaline pumping experience. If not that, come along to hang around with us friends", demanded he.
"I hang around with you folks all the time. Besides, I hate the irony of how you people dance along to the tunes of Honey Singh and call it a cultural night. "- I pressed my point.
"Oh come on, this one isn't going to be like that. The college people have really spent some money this time. You surely don't want to miss that, do you?"
I took a moment back for myself. "Finally a college fest worth the hullabaloo that surrounds it", I thought. Besides, I was leaving for home at 1 in the night for our mid semester break. "It wouldn't really hurt to go there, would it", I wondered.
"Only one doubt remains", I thought as I turned to Abhishek again, " Would there be old Bollywood?".
"Not if you don't lend me your hair gel", he chuckled as I finally tossed 'my precious' to him.
So there we were, on the big venue, trying to make our way into the crowd. There were some seats at the back but who actually cares to watch a concert sitting with nothing but other people's raised hands visible. At 7 did it start, with the DJ playing a mix of good and bad songs..typical cultural night material. All along, at every 10 minutes or so, some fair guy, someone who has specially shaved for the evening even though he never gets a hair on his face, would come on the stage with a girl, someone who has finally got that chance to drape a saree and speak the word 'mesmerizing' in each sentence she speaks in the evening. They would tell us how we are enjoying it so terribly good and how the night is still young. Finally, they would speak of the one thing that has brought me to that place and they would repeat it just so we know that the concert wouldn't totally suck. Ohh..how the USP has become the OSP (Only Selling Point) these days.
At about 9, when my ears were finally tired of listening to the 'neembuda' song, awe and applause hit the crowd as Neeti Mohan finally arrived on the stage. She talked about how she was happy to be received by such a 'lively' crowd and later asked if we had any song requests? "Song request?", wondered a puzzled me. "Surely I have many song requests but isn't the song she sings a part of the script or something. Something that is predecided.", I thought. Before I could think something out of this, a lady teacher of our college who had recently joined became the lady of the moment as she wanted to express her choice of song. With a thumping heart I wished to hear some Bollywood classic title come out of her mouth. She held the microphone close to her and spoke " I would really like if Neeti could sing 'In aankhon ki masti ke' for us all. "Ahaaa" my heart went as I became an instant fan of Neeti as well as of the teacher who had uttered that title in a tone as mellifluous as any. And so began the song and so began the better part of the night. She sang with just the right tinge of sultryness you would expect from a song for such an audience. She sung it her way, not trying to replicate the original singer in anyway, neither the voice nor the rhythm. Yet, It was perfect, just perfect.
When the music ended, we felt slightly down as all that anticipation was finally over although we loved every part of it. Then suddenly, the same two anchors re-emerged on the scene and announced the final performance of the night. The live orchestra hit the band as Neeti's voice once again reverberated in the atmosphere as she went 'Tune Maari Entriyaan' one final time. The dance crew went absolutely electrifying on the stage and the crowd erupted. Abhishek pulled me into where they were dancing. It didn't really matter now if we could see those stars or not. We just went with the flow. We might not be anything at dancing but we are all wedding dancers and have attended many 'baraats'. Some of our screws fell and we went nuts dancing all the while even when the singing was over. At that moment, that 'mesmerising ' moment, we could have danced to the sound of a Royal Enfield. Thankfully, we had some music on. It was then I knew, why they went to such concerts.
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| Taken from giphy.com |
At last, we got back at about a quarter to 11. I had imagined I would be drained when I come back but I was so pumped I could do it all over again and then too catch my train.
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