Na trital, na jhaptal

Since this story does not require any introduction let me get straight into it. Many years ago, actually only five, that is, in my second year of college I woke up to the fact that I had been involved in minimal extra-curricular activities that involved singing. Actually it began with a dream one fine morning. The dream was a real incident that had happened a little more than a year ago. That was the time when I had shifted to Bombay and my mother had come down to settle me in my hostel. The scene was pretty dramatic and it was between me and my mother. I was seeing her off at the railway station and her advice to her younger sister, my aunt, was to be strict with me. After that she and I got a few moments to ourselves when it happened. I expected her to say “I trust you and I know you will stay out of trouble. Be good. Study well and do us proud” but No! She said “promise me…promise me you’ll participate in Indian Idol this year” The train was about to leave and it had almost started moving. I said “yes amma, I promise. I will participate in it and with your prayers I WILL become the next Indian Idol”

Needless to say, my resolve to not be known as a singer (again) did not allow me to go as much as anywhere near the microphone in my college. Hey, college is all about image building right? And thanks to this brilliant theory of mine I ended up doing a lot of other things that I would have never imagined before. But in my second year, the promise that I had made to my mother started nagging me no end. Finally I decided that I would participate in some group singing competition (morbid fear of singing solos in public) in the next college festival that came. And yes, It happened to be everyone’s favourite Malhar or in a Sophiate’s case, not-so-favorite-but-it-still-happens-to-be-the-most-popular-college-fest-teeming-with-boys-who-are-like-angels-forbidden-in-Sophia-grounds. Any-hoo, unaware that I was till the very last minute of the auditions, I came to know that the only spot left for singing was in the Qawwali troupe and the person who told me this took my audition in front of a bania store outside college on her way home. So there, I was in the Qawwali team. Practice began zoron-shoron-se and Kajra mohabbat wala became our anthem for the next ten days.

Disaster struck when a couple of days before the event we came to know that a percussion instrument was mandatory. The only instrument we poor poor bathroom-singers could handle was the tambourine which did not quite fit the bill. Someone suggested we hire a tabla player but the budget committee refused to give us any money (bi*^#es). Something had to be done. We couldn’t withdraw and neither could we sing without a tabla player. Woe to that moment when I had that brilliant idea. I remembered seeing tablas in the store room, procured them and took them to Sr. Ananda, the only person I knew who could play the tabla and asked her to tune them for me.

Just in case you are wondering, no, I do not know how to play the instrument. The only way I can play it is how aunties play the dholak at weddings.

So the day finally came. We looked resplendent in our parrot green costumes (courtesy- Maganlal Dresswala) and our topis made us look like real princesses from The Arabian Nights. We went into the room and tried to seat ourselves as inconspicuously as possible because we knew how exactly we were going to perform (our two lead singers from the opposing teams were heavily dependent on their papers for the lyrics) and of course, Ustad Tess Joss was the tablist, how could things go wrong?

One look at the judges was enough to make me feel depressed. Judge no 1- hot Malayalee boy, seemingly from the music industry, Judge no 2- girl with a sweet smile with hair as long as Rapunzel’s who I was sure was a singer. I don't want to sound petty but I do not like making a fool out of myself in front of people prettier than me. On top of that, the group that performed before us were pros at everything they did on stage and their performance also included a jugal-bandi between the opposing Sardarjee tablists. After their performance we got onto the stage. Let me say that we had the brightest and the classiest costumes and our entrance had an aura of confidence. But the list of our strengths ends there. Before starting I looked at the judge- Miss Rapunzel. Seeing me behind the tabla she gave me the look, the look that said- show these guys that a girl can play the tabla too. Show them! Show them! Show them! I nodded back, promising that I would deliver.

The singing started. It started off well, except for the sloppy tabla beats. In my mad attempt to avoid looking at the faces of those expert sardarjee tablists sitting right in the front I put my heart and soul into making the taal coming out of the tablas as tolerable as possible. And then it happened. The lead of one of the teams forgot her lines very obviously which broke my attention and I started beating the smaller tabla harder. To my horror and before I even knew it, this tabla rolled off its stand and kept rolling ahead till the lead of the team on my right stopped it and pushed it towards me. Although this made the singer forget even more lines, at least the tabla was back in my custody and while the singing part went on dutifully, I, very humbly, kept the tabla back in its position and continued playing (talk about sportsmanship spirit). The song was coming to an end and by this time I had simply given up on trying to play the instrument. So the last part of the Qawwali was a capella! Wonder why they’ve never tried it in real…

When we finished singing I looked at the judges. Honestly, I felt sorry for them. You could see that they were dying to laugh but couldn’t because of the position they held in the audience. The rest of the audience however was not so kind. We were greeted by a stunned silence and muffled sniggers as we came down the stage.

This story usually generates a humungous amount of laughter whenever I narrate it and although it makes me laugh equally hard now the day that it happened was perhaps the most embarrassing moment of my life