Indian Ocean live

Indian Ocean performed in DAIICT last night. It was going to be my second chance to see them live. It's been three years since their mesmerizing performance at Palace Ground as part of Bangalore Habba. A long enough gap to be yearning again for some more of them. So here I was - desperate, ready to go all the way to Gandhinagar, in spite it being the d-day (the day when I was to start my prep) for me. PooCh, as usual, came to my rescue and became my partner in crime. This was a brave and generous move considering the fact that one of his friends is in town. :)

5 of us - PooCh, Megs, Pissu, Anushree and me - started the not-so-long drive in PooCh's car at around 8:30 pm. A change of drivers for safety reasons, a long pit break at 'healthy che' for its yummi veg momos, random discussions on restaurants on SG highway and we reached the vanue - DAIICT campus. Once there, it was Anushree's territory. After all she is an esteemed alumni of this institute.

Talking about alma mater, I feel I have not been a good alumni of any of the institution that I belonged to. Sarafa and then RV - I never looked back. My relation with my work-places has been relatively better. I am at least in touch with people who really mattered and had been to office to meet them even after leaving the company. I feel, it's people, more than the building that give you compelling reasons to come back to a place. With WIMWI, I hope the bonds are stronger coz I really want to come back to this red brick temple again and again.


Gate-crashing has its own fun. Still, being the proud student of WIMWI, we decided to do the right thing - let the lady from the institute do the talking. And rightly, she arrange the guest entry for the gang. A quick bite at Dominos and we set off to watch the performance of the day. I must admit, it was a very lively crowd outside and near the cafeteria but as we approached the field where performance was to be held, I felt that the energy was missing. Supposadely 3000 plus guests were present there, but somehow the crowd seemed much smaller and dispersed. It is one of the disadvantage of having such a huge venue (which is not even lit properly) for such an event. Comparing it with our own LKP, I really see remarkable advantage of having a closed enclosure. It also helped us with lights and sounds during Chaos. So while the crowd seemed low on energy (or atleast lesser than I expected), the band itself also looked a little mellowed down version of what they used to be. Aseem da's unfortunate demise is really a big loss to world of music. I could feel his presence on the stage. The band did well to entertain the crowd playing all the popular numbers like bandeh, ma reva, leaving home, kandisa as well some other not so popular songs. Another comparison that I am taking liberty to make is about the stage presence.  I remember seeing them in Bangalore Habba and the way they involved crowd. That clearly lacked today. One of the reason to it was mentioned about the band that they could not see the crowd because of darkness. I agree. Unless an artist see the result of his magic, he can not reach the next level of involvement himself. On an overall basis, an ok ok performance. I am an Indian Ocean fan so I enjoyed all the songs. Still, it could have been better.

During Chaos, I argued with IKyu about why we did not invite Indian Ocean instead of some other artist. And his argument was that they have a very limited fan-following. So true. Sitting in my dorm room, I can count 10 kandisa fans but my mom always find them lot of chillam chilli. Clearly they can never be show-stoppers for the event like Chaos. Jo bhi hua acha hua. Sonu came and he rocked the stage and everyone loved him. Aal izz well - we heard one of our esteemed faculty say later that night when Sonu performed in LKP. That's the magic of a star.

Our date with food continued to Manek Chowk where we relished on some chocolate sandwiches and hot and spicy pav bhaji. This place reminds me so much of Sarafa in Indore (incidently, Manek Chowk is actually situated amidst the Sarafa bajar). Just a couple of months and I am going to be back to Indore. Enjoying my share of garadu and bhutte ka kis (or kiss?) :)

Till then, Muggo tucche muggo...