Bangalore Habba had me doing hubba hubba !!

Well here I am after a long weekend and a weekend full of artistic confluence.. music, dance and more music. It all started with Anita wanting to see what Bangalore Habba was all about. I was at my ignorant best... having heard about the habba but not being very interested about it.. Then I saw the program which Anita put it under my nose.. saying that the program would contain musicians like Amjad Ali Khan and Taufiq Quereshi et al. So then this little bulb went on my head to get the passes... Having got the passes we all made our way to Palace grounds... it was well set up and there were seats available. Surprise !! So after having met friends and muching on lots of popcorns and other stuff we sat down to enjoy the evening and what an evening it was... Friday : December 12th 2003 Started with Amjad Ali Khan playing three pieces and it made me forget everything but what he was playing... He ended with a benglai song " ekla cholo re combined with a bihu song from assam " and that made us all very happy ... Then we watched Shobhana performing her dance sequences which had us all enthralled.. at the end of it ( courtesy somenew friends we made), we reached the VIP stalls and sat on the VVIP chairs and right at the time when Taufiq was playing we were on the first row... ha ha !! What a surprise. there were some technical glitches which resulted in the band stopping in the middle due to the loss of power but thank god they resumed and we were assaulted with Taufiq's magic which went on for more than an hour and what a delight that was.. it was 1:30 by the time we reached home... Anita had to leave for Hyderabad next morning... but we decided that we would attend the other two days too.The crowd was light and I hoped that the crowd would be like this the next two days... ( much to my disappointment) Saturday: December 13th 2003. Got VIP passes courtesy my friend Bhaskar Rai ...And by the time we arrived it was heavily crowded and it was difficult to get a seat but however we managed. Many tried to plonk one chair on another to get a better view... that resulted in a little skirmish among the audience.. Meanwhile Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia started weaving his magic with his flute recital and it was a melodious experience... slowly the crowd started dispersing and we got to go forward and so did we... A group started doing a modern dance composition and it was nice watching them sway to the rhythm. After that it was Mr Prasad Bidappa's turn to dazze the audience with a fashion show of silk sarees designed by the Maharaja of Mysore and then it was time for some more dance by Saroj Khan's troupes and then again Fashion shows conducted by Neeta Lulla and Rocky S. Seemed that Mumbai was in Bangalore what with all their shiny dance troupes... and all the gliterrati... anyways.... had had enough of all that so left early... Sunday: December 14th 2003. This time it was VVIP passes and well we were looking forward to the show. Started with Layam, Talam, etc percussion confluence...It was good and then I was keen on watching Shankar Eeshan And Lloyd perform and they did not disappoint us... Missed Anita since we had become fans of KHNH songs fans... and Shankar performed KHNH songs and the crowd went mad... then he went on to Dil Chahata Hai songs... the birdie song and the Koi Kahe song which drove the public all the madder ... when he started singing Ghanana Ghanana from Lagaan people started to open bottles of water and sprinkled all over to fake rain... the whole crowd was having the time of their life and so was I ? LOL !! Then it was Aasma which was pretty disappointing after Shankar and we left the show... All in all felt very happy and exhausted after three continuous days of shows... The organisers have promised the crowd that this will happen every year and well I am surely looking forward to it !!! Meanwhile I am one satifisfied cat who has well had the cream.... MEOWWWWW !!!