Went to a Niladri Kumar concert at Pandit Farms (did you know they have air-conditioned porta potties there?!) courtesy PwC…via my cousin who worked there till last month. It was very grassy (well, it’s a bloody lawn, what do you expect?) hot, muggy, with the clouds threatening to come down (we even felt a few rather large drops of rain midway through the evening), and overall perfect weather…for mosquites.
Anyway, after a long (long enough for us to wish they had some sort of golf carts for internal transfers) walk from the parking (which I believe is in another district, or so it felt), we arrived at the gates, saw the ‘Masala Doodh’ counter being mobbed by the Kothrud-Prabhat Road-Model Colony Brahmin men & women in silk Fabindia kurtas & Kanjeevaram saris (respectively, of course, what did you think?), and for absolutely no reason, imbibed the said ‘Masala Doodh’ (₹50 a pop) because ‘शास्त्र असतं ते’ before proceeding to attempt entry, whence we were sent to a ‘Registrations’ counter to get a hard copy of the digital ticket. We didn’t ask why (would it have helped?) and acquired the said tickets before proceeding towards the stage (another long walk).
The setup was large. Very large. Much disco. The (flashing and blinding) lights, the stage, the sets, and the speaker stacks would have all been too much even in a Pink Floyd live show, though to be fair to the organisers, there weren’t any lasers. Or flying pigs, now that I think of it. Anyway, it was very flashy. A bit too flashy for a classical music show. The compère came on, bubbling with enthusiasm (some radio jockey), and promptly forgot his lines, opened his phone, and started reading off the screen without a shred of shame.
On an adjacent (similarly large and flashy) stage (thankfully out of earshot), there was some quack lady giving medical and fitness advice (“…don’t walk too fast; that is modern science that expects you to burn calories; yoga says walk slowly to lose weight; trust your tradition…”; you get the point), and by the time we were seated in the VIP ‘Platinum’ seats, I think we’d managed our daily quota of 10,000 steps.
Anyhoo, after a long wait (why don’t they have opening acts? I mean, what’s the point of making the audience wait while your diva gets ready? Warm them up, it’s just common sense), the man himself comes on to a rockstar welcome (whistles, blinding and flashing lights, fog machines going crazy), and settles (after the mandatory ‘felicitation’ at the hands of the sponsors, Sakal newspapers’ represented by a lady in a shimmering saree and an obviously fake smile, making the most of the obligatory mix-up on stage about which bouquet and what gift bag goes to which celebrity, and so on) down to play.
Now, if, at this point in the narration, I were to say, ‘to cut a long story short’, you’d crucify me, given I’ve taken about a large potful of oil for the set up (Marathi speakers will get the reference; after all, my family was originally Puranik before changing our last name to Gadgil, and possibly made a living by telling, or making up, stories to regale a late-night audience…like I am doing now). But be that as it may, I must cut to the chase. So, here goes…
You see, Pandit Niladri Kumar invented a mix of the sitar and guitar in the early 2000s, and apparently won some MTV award for it back then, because of which he came away with the impression that it (the Zitar, as he called that abomination) is something of a good idea. And so, as soon as the musicians were seated, he sprung that instrument on the unsuspecting audience, viz., us poor people sitting on uncomfortable chairs on a mosquito-infested lawn next to an almost dry river, without as much as a warning. Simultaneously, the lightmen, in all their wisdom, decided that this was the time to go up to 11 (once again, for this reference, look up ‘Spinal Tap’; you’re welcome) and…Went. To. Town. With the strobes and whatnots, temporarily blinding us all, while Panditji and his accomplices assaulted our auditory senses, instilling the real fear in the now captive listeners of going permanently deaf due to the cacophony of that…thing.
Rasika (my darling cousin whose stellar career at PwC was the reason we were here and in the expensive seats) and I considered bolting from the venue and going to get a much-needed drink to calm our nerves, but we decided to stay on for another 10 minutes to see if there was anything redeeming coming. I remember us looking at each other and mouthing (because we couldn’t hear ourselves, leave alone each other, over the din) ‘Keep an open mind…keep an open mind…keep an open mind’. So, we stayed. Best decision of the evening.
Because once the introduction was over, the Zitar was laid down and a real Sitar picked up. Immediately, every single person in the audience realised why that man there on stage deserved to be there. It. Was. Pure. Magic. His fingers moved not just the strings, but our very souls. For the next hour, trust me on this (I was there, you see), we were all in heaven. On drums and percussion was Taufiq Qureshi‘s son, Shikhar Naad Qureshi (what a beautiful, and apt name!). On tabla was the son of the legendary Pandit Suresh Talwalkar, Satyajit, on Mridangam was the genius Sridhar Parthasarathy, and on keyboards, the famous Agnelo Fernandes. This was a dream team. And they delivered on that dream. Each musician got a solo (Satyajit got two), and boy, did they rock it. But the star was Niladri Kumar, of course. There’s a word in Marathi/Hindi that roughly translates into ‘mesmerised’, but is in fact, so much more nuanced and profound than that in terms of the feeling it describes. We were all मंत्रमुग्ध!
Until it was the end of the show, when Panditji picked up the Zitar again and…wait for it…took requests!!! Fucking facepalm, man. Why? He played songs from Hindi films first. And then, if it were possible, he screwed it up further by smoothly (?) shifting to the Top Gun anthem (Harold Faltermeyer, eat that!), transitioning into Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram and mixing it with Raag Bhairavi (noooooooo!) before once again devolving into a movement so frenetic that I thought his head was going to roll off, ending with such a crescendo of what can only be called noise. Why, Panditji, why? I understand that in 2024, you must pander to popular taste, but I’ll be honest: you debased yourself. And it was not pretty. Nor necessary. You are a rock star. But today evening pushed your luck. You don’t have to do that. Especially with the Pune audience. We are all connoisseurs (or so we think).
To conclude (how have you even read this far? Do you not have anything productive to do, you lazy brain-rotted bum?), it was like eating a sandwich with the best gourmet patty, a succulent, juicy, rightly spiced, fresh, beautifully cooked, perfect mix of everything that a patty should have and can be expected of a patty, made by a Michelin-starred chef, sandwiched between two slices burnt toast made of rotting, mould-laden bread. Zitar-Sitar-Zitar. Just. No.
Anyway, I commend you for coming this far. You got more stamina than it took me to write this drivel that could have ended in less than a dozen sentences and still made more sense than this stream-of-consciousness बकबक. Go get yourself a drink. You earned it.
And now, cheers. And good night.
