Thursday 5 November 2009

A Celebration!

It so happened, that on the third anniversary of BlendzZ, I was in India, but for some myriad reasons, but nothing much happened. As fate would have it, I was in India in the last week of September, through mid October and the exact day of the birthday of Vinay, happened to be a musical celebration of sorts.

Like it is said, things that happen by chance have a far more touch of intrigue and excitement than what would happen as per plan.

It was mere coincidence that I landed in India, in the early morning hours on the 26th. Later that day, I get to know that Jairaj also, was in Bangalore on a vacation. 27th was Vinay's birthday. We thought we'd go and surprise him and boy! Was he surprised! It took him 2 seconds to come out of the trance and actually recognise me and Jairaj near his house.

It was at that instant, that we decided that come what may, it'd be a sin and a blunder we'd regret for the rest of our lives if we didn't jam atleast once. Come on! It was for the band, for the time, for the 3 of us being there at the same time!

Without much fuss, (and only Vinay's usual delay, that happened "by chance" that day (too) :P) we started jamming. Jairaj's tabla was totally in a mode that couldn't be played, he compensated for it, with his dhol, Vinay's faithful guitar still obeyed his fingers, my keyboard still made a noise and we'd a new entry for company. The Macbook Pro, on which I'd later record and edit songs and realise how easy it is to do so. It was unfortunate that Sandeep wasn't there, and the two critics who were in Bangalore at that time, couldn't be a part of it.

All said and done, the jamming session didn't produce any masterpiece. Hell, it didn't even produce a full song. It was apparent that each one of us lacked practice and the obvious moments were given a miss. I guess its over time that our mind runs faster than what we can actually do with instruments, and for that part to be realised, we don't have enough time to spend on the instruments or amongst ourselves. But I realised that there is one thing that we needn't devote much time to. The camaraderie. Jairaj may not have spent enough time on percussions along with his MBA. His boisterousness remains. He can come up with an infectious rhythm and keep us going. Vinay and I, realised this thing between us even during our last jamming of 5 minutes, during my previous visit to India that we needn't sit down together for days to understand each other musically. Still, he goes to a random, out-of-the-scale chord pattern and I hit the exact same note while singing, all this without plan.

The 2-hour-or-so jammin session of BlendzZ (well, partially) after an year or more of lull. It was excitement, happiness and feelings that cannot be conveyed by words. I guess that is what music does.