Singing our way through Covid lockdown blues
It started with the suggestion of my scholar friend Dr Dinesh Dadhichi, who retired as professor of English from Kurukshetra University and who has an ear for music. He sent me an online link with the message that I should take part in the competition. He knew from our university days that I was fond of singing.
The link he sent opened to a web page that announced singing competitions for seniors. They had appropriately titled the competition, Seniors have talent, which assured me of a platform where I could render long forgotten melodies. The condition was that we had to sing Hindi songs only from Bollywood.
In our country, even if you don’t speak Hindi, you will find people humming, singing and crooning Bollywood numbers. In an instant, I had a feeling of getting connected to my countrymen from its length and breadth. I was reminded of my travel from Mysore to Ooty when all along Karnataka, we heard songs of Guide, Hamraaz, Milan, Do Badan, Mera Saya and Sangam being played en route at tea and food stalls.
I registered myself when they asked me to send them a recorded video so as to let them know my singing quality. I consulted Koumdi, my wife, and we selected a song by SD Burman with classical base, Meri duniya hai maa tere anchal main. I sang it on Smule, a software karaoke, which came out well. A day later, I received information that my name had been shortlisted and I should be ready with my performance on the coming Sunday.
Before the singing Sunday, a host of technical support guys got in touch, including Abhishek, Furqan, Archana, Suhas, Pradyuman and Dev. They had us present ourselves for our screen angles and sound quality. They had our microphones and cameras adjusted. Also, the amount of light that they needed to make our wrinkled faces look presentable. The exercise gave us an important feel enhancing our esteem and relevance to the world of music, if nothing else.
D-day arrived and there we saw on the screen a bespectacled and beautiful young lady, Jeeya Sethi of Mumbai, as the anchor of the competition. She had a typical, childlike way of talking and conducting herself on screen, being helpful to the generation on the wrong side of sixties. She appreciated that some people might still need help with the gadgets, given tremors in hands and fingers while operating the laptops and mobile phones. If someone took a couple of minutes more for preparation, she had the patience to accommodate.
My batch started giving its performance, while I waited with bated breath for my turn. We had to finish our song within three minutes. Jeeya introduced me to the rest of the world and verbalised my quote, “Music to me is a kind of meditation. It set the ball rolling and the dye was cast. I sang a Mohammed Rafi number, “Tu mere saamne hai, teri zulfen hain khuli, tera anchal hai dhala, main bhala hosh main kaise rahoon.”
The show over and our voting lines began to pulsate. The next week passed in seeking an increase in our scores. The consolation was that even if we failed in Popular Choice, we still had hope in Editor’s Choice. Well, I scored almost double the votes than the first runner-up. The results said I’d topped in the Popular Choice category. A fortnight passed with so much of indulgence, activity and musical earfuls that the lockdown and Covid blues paled into a kind of mildness in their severity.
THEY HAD APPROPRIATELY TITLED THE COMPETITION, SENIORS HAVE TALENT, WHICH ASSURED ME OF A PLATFORM WHERE I COULD RENDER LONG FORGOTTEN MELODIES