An Indian Ocean concert at Pragati Maidan - 48 Degrees Celsius

Yesterday, braving the cold Delhi winter and armed to the teeth with wollens, we made it to the Indian Ocean concert. It was held in Pragati Maidan in the  Hamsadhwani theatre, which is an open air auditorium. The concert marked an end to the 10 day long public art festival called 48Degrees Celcius. Before going there we were a bit sceptical about the open air thingy, but once there we forgot all about it. The performance captivated all the senses, where was the cold? The audience was hyperactive and the ambience was electrifying. I too could not stop myself from swaying to the music. I started with an innocent foot tapping and by the end of the concert I was totally into the groove with the music. I have seen Indian Ocean concerts before but this was unearthly, no I should rather say 'very earthy'. The cold night and the warm music along with the ecstatic audience, could we ask for more?

Rahul Ram, as always played the rockstar part to the hilt. His amazing stage presence, his wild locks and headbanging was something to die for. His singing the first line of 'Arre ruk ja re bande' was accompanied with a deafening roar from the audience. He did most of the talking. Susmit Sen talked the least, his style of guitar playing is too intricate to allow him anything else, he was wonderful. Asheem Chakravarty looked like the person in charge and his careful, unconventional rendition is of course the soul of their music. He sang a new song 'bondhu' in bengali .

Amit Kilam displayed his talents on drums, flute and on the gabgubi. While 'Ma Rewa' was being played Amit came to the front line with a gabgubi tucked under an arm. Rahul Ram explained that 'gabgubi' is a musical instrument from bengal which the 'bauls' played. He joked 'but we have a owl playing it for u tonight, a kashmiri owl'. Amit played a tune on the gabgubi and Rahul and Susmit matched it with their instruments. It looked impromptu and the effect was wonderful. They connected to the crowd readily, Rahul said that 'Kandisa is a Syrian christian hymn which he picked up from a school teacher who used to break into that song over Old Monk. The crowd readily approved the 'Old Monk' bit. The crowd was shouting for 'Kandisa' but Asheem Chakraborty said that they play it as the last number as the audience usually leaves after that. The most wanted songs seemed 'Bhor', 'Kandisa' and 'Ma Rewa'.

The crowd mainly consisted of college goers with some elders and a few children. I was pleasantly surprised to see a five year old child playing the air guitar, did I see a future musician in the making? The crowd was active and went wild when 'Ma Rewa' was belted out. One half of the audience was on their feet, waving their arms and banging their heads. Almost all the songs were accompanied with 'once more' and Asheem Chakraborty dismissed it saying that they had so many songs and limited time, repeating songs would be a mistake. Even when the concert ended, the crowd was not ready to go and shouted for more, it looked as if the band was willing but the organisers closed the show. All in all we had a great time and came down the stairs with a song on our lips.

P.S : When we reached the Max Muller Bhavan to collect the passes it was already late and they had stopped distributing, however a kind student had a couple of tickets to spare and gave us. If 'you' happen to read this blog, then 'thanks once again'.