Not too often in life does everything fall in place for as long as 3-4 days in a row. Luckily for me, that happened last week. I was touring Pune with my band, Divine Raaga. It was the band's first outing; and guess what, we were travelling to the city of my choice. Among other reasons for my love for the city, is the fact that my lady love is currently put up there.
Thursday, November 1. The band arrives. We go around the city, with Anand and I playing part-time guides for the rest of us; after all we'd stayed in that city in the past and there was no way we wouldn't show that off. The day was nice. Thanks to Anand, our taste buds got treated to some serious awesomeness in M G Road, tasting authentic Marathi Thali at just 180 bucks ! (200 if you waste food. What a move !). Once we were back, we got busy practicing the special song for the gig, a changed version of our project song, Apna Tendulkar. Soon, it was 12 and officially it was gig-day !
However, I wanted to spend a few more hours with my musician pals, trying to learn a fact or two from them. Our drummer, Mrinal gave me company and I got to hear a bit about melodies and how important that was to a band like ours. Also, some 12 hours before that I got some free lessons on songwriting while Anand rode me to M G Road.
Before I slept at 5am, Mrinal had engraved a beautiful composition of his into my greys and I couldn't help humming that. It goes 'Teri muskuraahaton pe martey rahen, har lamha, tanha'. Beautiful melody. Bollywoodish, but very soothing and classy.
Friday, November 2. Gig day. We woke up late. Spent half the day trying to get my friend's bike fixed. I had borrowed that to save myself from the unavoidable autowalarchy ! But the tyres of the bike weren't any better. Our gig was to start by 8. Karavaan at IISER was where we were going to headline in a while. There were some 10 performances before our gig and 8 of them were pretty pathetic. There was one kickass group dance and a nice performance by the IISER band that made me feel good. Also, some 10 of my friends in Pune had turned up for the show and that felt nice, especially because the gig venue was really far away from where most of them stayed.
Enter Divine Raaga. They rocked. There are a couple of things the band tends to lack (I wouldn't tell you what all. Those are meant to be kept to the band) but in this gig I couldn't spot much of an error. It was all pretty awesome and most importantly, the crowd loved it. Though I am hardly responsible for how awesome a gig is, I always feel like there's a part I play as lyricist and manager. I often feel that's incorrect, but it's good to feel that you contributed, no matter how small that contribution is.
Saturday, November 3. Some stupid meeting and then I had an evening up in store. I was free by 6 and my better half was home by 7. "Let's get drunk", said one of us. Who cares who did !
But then I also wanted to have some awesome food along with the 'Madira'. Dominos? No ! I wanted to have mutton masala and rice. All this discussion was taking place after each of us were at least a couple of pegs down. Options put forward were to order using Zomato, some Tit Bit or something I'd never heard of and a site called tastykhana.com. Zomato had too many options and I got a little puzzled. The options looked like pop-up ads. Coke Studio's 'Madari' must have played some 15 times by now on youtube, and had been set as my new ringtone as well.
Finally we placed an order using tastykhana.com. One mutton masala, One basmati rice and 2 egg rolls. 1 more peg each and there went the door-bell ringing. Naaice ! That was like as quick as Domino's.
We enjoyed the food as much as we wanted to. We were two happy customers. Happily drunk. Happily fed. Happily high.
Next morning I noted 4 good things about that new food ordering website I tried last night.
One. It was simple to browse, even though I was drunk.
Two. These guys take your order directly and don't put you across to someone else. Also they come and deliver. They are like the single point of contact, which is awesome service.
Three. They understood all that I said, though my girlfriend couldn't. But then, to be fair, she was also drunk, making our conversation twice as difficult.
Four. The delivery boy had change of 50 bucks.
Sunday. November 4. Back to Bangalore.
Thursday, November 1. The band arrives. We go around the city, with Anand and I playing part-time guides for the rest of us; after all we'd stayed in that city in the past and there was no way we wouldn't show that off. The day was nice. Thanks to Anand, our taste buds got treated to some serious awesomeness in M G Road, tasting authentic Marathi Thali at just 180 bucks ! (200 if you waste food. What a move !). Once we were back, we got busy practicing the special song for the gig, a changed version of our project song, Apna Tendulkar. Soon, it was 12 and officially it was gig-day !
However, I wanted to spend a few more hours with my musician pals, trying to learn a fact or two from them. Our drummer, Mrinal gave me company and I got to hear a bit about melodies and how important that was to a band like ours. Also, some 12 hours before that I got some free lessons on songwriting while Anand rode me to M G Road.
Before I slept at 5am, Mrinal had engraved a beautiful composition of his into my greys and I couldn't help humming that. It goes 'Teri muskuraahaton pe martey rahen, har lamha, tanha'. Beautiful melody. Bollywoodish, but very soothing and classy.
Friday, November 2. Gig day. We woke up late. Spent half the day trying to get my friend's bike fixed. I had borrowed that to save myself from the unavoidable autowalarchy ! But the tyres of the bike weren't any better. Our gig was to start by 8. Karavaan at IISER was where we were going to headline in a while. There were some 10 performances before our gig and 8 of them were pretty pathetic. There was one kickass group dance and a nice performance by the IISER band that made me feel good. Also, some 10 of my friends in Pune had turned up for the show and that felt nice, especially because the gig venue was really far away from where most of them stayed.
Enter Divine Raaga. They rocked. There are a couple of things the band tends to lack (I wouldn't tell you what all. Those are meant to be kept to the band) but in this gig I couldn't spot much of an error. It was all pretty awesome and most importantly, the crowd loved it. Though I am hardly responsible for how awesome a gig is, I always feel like there's a part I play as lyricist and manager. I often feel that's incorrect, but it's good to feel that you contributed, no matter how small that contribution is.
Saturday, November 3. Some stupid meeting and then I had an evening up in store. I was free by 6 and my better half was home by 7. "Let's get drunk", said one of us. Who cares who did !
But then I also wanted to have some awesome food along with the 'Madira'. Dominos? No ! I wanted to have mutton masala and rice. All this discussion was taking place after each of us were at least a couple of pegs down. Options put forward were to order using Zomato, some Tit Bit or something I'd never heard of and a site called tastykhana.com. Zomato had too many options and I got a little puzzled. The options looked like pop-up ads. Coke Studio's 'Madari' must have played some 15 times by now on youtube, and had been set as my new ringtone as well.
Finally we placed an order using tastykhana.com. One mutton masala, One basmati rice and 2 egg rolls. 1 more peg each and there went the door-bell ringing. Naaice ! That was like as quick as Domino's.
We enjoyed the food as much as we wanted to. We were two happy customers. Happily drunk. Happily fed. Happily high.
Next morning I noted 4 good things about that new food ordering website I tried last night.
One. It was simple to browse, even though I was drunk.
Two. These guys take your order directly and don't put you across to someone else. Also they come and deliver. They are like the single point of contact, which is awesome service.
Three. They understood all that I said, though my girlfriend couldn't. But then, to be fair, she was also drunk, making our conversation twice as difficult.
Four. The delivery boy had change of 50 bucks.
Sunday. November 4. Back to Bangalore.
Luvvddd itt...
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Stay Blesses..
:):D:)
Thanx so much, Mona Ji :)
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