ROI 14: Armaan ke Aasmaan...

We were having our last few practice sessions with the band members before the Piano rounds. All of us were busy rehearsing when we get news from Rittika (one of the associate producers) that we have to write & compose a song to be sung for the kids of Shiksha- an NGO for underprivileged children. Wow! Finally a real challenge! Ankita quickly jotted down some lyrics…and our man Shantanu was busy putting tune to those words…and finally we created our piece “Armaanon ke Asmaan”



All of us were so glad with this project given to us…that we forgot about our piano songs for sometime…all of us were busy singing this song…our song! We even practiced with the instruments of the Band members… Sui brought out his flute and started with a small piece…Emon on the Keyboard…Abhi on the congo…Bharat on the Dholak…Amit on the rhythm pad..and Shan on the Guitar…it was lovely when all of us sang to their music…what a feel!


Here are the lyrics:


Armaanon ke aasmaan ko liye…
Chalte hain apne sapnon ke liye…


Kwaahishoon ke paar chal…
Mushkilon se kabhi na daar…
Apne bhi honge sapne kabhi…
Aaye jo milne hua yeh yakeen…


La la…la la…la la la la…la la…la la…la la la la…

Armaan ke asmaan ko liye…
Chalte hain apne sapnon ke liye…



The next day morning we were taken to a park near by and only after a long time did we get to know that Renuka Shahane was coming to meet us. Were we thrilled or what!!!! I have always loved her right from her Surabhi days!! What a wonderful actress she is…no no…what a wonderful lady she is! So beautiful…so intelligent…with such a pretty smile! Talking about smiles…as soon as she came we sang her the song and she was so surprised that we had done such a lovely thing for the kids of Shiksha…sad they couldn’t be there though! Then we all told her how we love that smile of hers…then suddenly Chang from behind me told her.. “ma’am…aapki tarah we have someone here who smiles so beautifully…molar to molar…” and everyone turns towards me…if I was wearing a red dress that day my face would have been camouflaged that instant! Hehe!!

(gosh I look horrendous in it!!)

Here’s a very amateur shoot of what we sang for her… (just avoid my extensive hand shaking…since all of us were swinging to the tune...I couldn’t hold the cam steady..sorry!) And by the way...the only instrument you can hear is Emon’s guitar coz we could obviously not carry everything to the park!

After shooting this about 5-6 times we all sat down under the cool shade of the Jamun trees in that park and began talking to Renuka ji. We slowly brought her to the topic of music..and then la..we made her sing for us…it was a really nice moment…here…have a peek at it!

We even made our maestro Shan strum his baby for her…take a look at this too…sorry only a 3/4th of the piece is there in this video…that is ‘cause my cam’s charge got over by then :(

In the end after all the various bytes for the show…we took our final parting shot with Renuka ji…and bid her adieu! That is one day we had loads of fun together…outside hotel Savoy where we were on house arrest!! Hehehe!

I’m glad we had such fun-filled moments for me to cherish when I’m a little down or when ever I miss all of them too much…three cheers to all 28 of us for that lovely song we created!!! Hip hip…HURRAY! Hip hip HURRAY!!! Hip Hip HURRAY!!

ROI 13: The nautankies of 210 !!

I loved being in those guys room…oh no no please don’t go thinking I’m crazy or something…it’s just that their room had the most beautiful sight form their window….mountains…trees…far away buildings…green…mud-brown…and cement here and there..



Ok before you guys get confused let me tell you which room I’m talking about here…210…the residents of which were: Amit, Bhavin and Prashant. Bhavin I knew from Dubai, a good friend of mine…but Amit and Prashant were still on my get-to-know-them list! After my frequent visits to their room for our sessions with Shan in the evening, and after watching Prashant, Abhishek, Shan and Bhavin take their turns to get into the bathroom after every 15 minutes…I got accustomed to these guys! By the way those four were trying to smoke in a no-smoking hotel!



I used to watch Prashant and Abhi fight over that last pack of cigarettes which Prashant “with loads of difficulty” (as he states it) hid it from Alfe (our contestant manager if you people remember my earlier posts)…God!!! Can’t they just give it up if they find it so difficult hiding their precious possessions!! Guys!!! There was no way anyone could stop Prashant from quitting…but I did try my level best to make Machar (that’s what Vani & I called Abhi! Heheh) quit. Everyday, when to others I’d ask how many songs they prepared and practiced…to Abhi I’d ask how many he fagged! And if I heard more than 2…I vowed not to speak to him till he brought that down to one!! Yea people….that’s the other side of me…I can get stubborn if it means getting my friends back on track!!! LIKE IT OR NOT!! HMPH!!



Ok chill I just got into the mood….heheh!



Well…about Amit…he’s a real genuine guy, an awesome singer and a loyal friend. Harshi and he were pretty close friends…he was so sweet he promised that he would help her with her pronunciation once she got the tune of the song right…and yes like most of you would have also guessed …people talked about this friendship behind their backs and then Amit would come to me and start discussing how narrow-minded the others were…to doubt such a simple friendship that Harshi and he shared… he did use hi now-famous line.. “Ek bath bolu…dukh hota hai yaar!”



Ah… never mind all of them Amit…I trust you and so does Harshi…we’ll still continue to freak you out like we used to…remember the Awesome foursome?? Hehehe… CHEERS!!! Really hoping you or Emon become the Idols!!! Keep rocking the stage buddy!!!! We are with you! :)

ROI 12: She completes the Awesome 4some!!!

She was a darling…tall beauty with a lot of brains. I’ve never met a person more humble and down to earth especially hailing from the UK…a powerful voice…a playful mind…and a persistent learner (when it comes to speaking and singing Hindi)…Harshida Madhaparia!



My first proper acquaintance with her was when she was my roomie at Sahil during the theatre rounds. Damn sweet this girl is I tell you. All these thoughts about how girls from UK/US are born snooty just vanished when I met Harshi. Then at Savoy she was put up with Priyanka and Charu in 301. But most of the time she would be with us (Vani, Aish and me) in 308. I used to adore her sense of humour…how she used to come up with wacky Hindi dialogues for the video bytes especially the Agnisakshi one…”ek machar saala admi ko hijda bana detha hai” [CHPAK!! That was me maarofying the machar that just flew past my eyes!]



She had nicknames for almost all 28 of us…lemme see if I remember them all…umm Vannita (stress on the double ‘n’)…Ashmi (note: the ‘a’ should be squeaked at a higher pitch than ‘shmi’…and this one was for me! Hehe)…”pur…pur…pur…purrrrrrrr” (for Parleen…remember the starting tune of Bunty aur Bubli?...that’s it!)…Chang wang…Var’tikka’ Masala (Hehehe!!)…yea I guess that’s it…no no “sui”(again high pitched…and with her finger in the air portraying a needle…for suhit!) God!! She is the limit!!!! Hehe!



I enjoyed our riyaaz sessions…Harshi would come up and plonk herself on our bed when Vani & I would be doing our riyaaz. She would follow us very religiously because she didn’t understand what her roomies sang! I remember this once she came running to our room in the morning ans went “MAN!!!! I was woken up by Priyanka…and then when I tried to get into the bathroom Charo was in there singing… my room is full of Riyaaz!!!!” Hehe! Wasn’t that a classic line?!!



She was the official “hair-straightener” for everyone who wanted to style their hair. Seriously! Her most ardent customers were Aisha, Vani and Puja…every second day they’d want her to straighten their hair. And she would patiently draw aside strands of hair and straighten them with her straightener (sounds like a tongue twister doesn’t it? Strands…Straighten…Straightener.. PHEW!). Once Emon and Parleen also straightened their hair…Parleen’s looked fine…but Emon…must say it looked damn cute on him…but not suitable for public viewing!! Hehe! Even Chang wanted to straighten his hair…Chang of all the people!!! He has naturally straight hair…and he wants them “straightened”….Hah! She didn’t do it obviously!! :)

The guys used to be terrified of the four of us together (Vani,Harshi,Aish&me)…they called us a foursome! Why? ‘Cause we used to scare them with our showing off how much love and affection flowed between the four of us...don’t go thinking now you guys… we just hugged each other that’s all! But even that scared the guys if it were more than one hug per minute….hehehe!! And boy! Did we enjoy doing this to them!! Especially Amit…his face is worth watching every time we call him to catch a glimpse of us hugging each other!! Hehe!

Awesome foursome…that’s what we were…together always…singing…pulling each other’s legs…dancing…masti maarofying…always! Miss all of it like crazy sometimes!!! Hope this bond of ours lasts forever babes!!! Harshi…when you’re off to London don’t you forget your “Ashmi” ok?? Hope you do well sweety…get someone to (in Harshi’s style) “riyaaz” you up and you’ll ROCK!!!



Adios Amigo!

ROI 11: Entertaining...Mischievous...and Often Naughty...that's EMON for you!

With that specs on him and that naughty look on his face 24/7…he reminds you of the kid brother in your family. At least for me he did resemble my 11 year old cousin bother a lot! Not only does he look like a miniature version of Sonu Nigam…he sings like him too!! A bundle of talent…mischief…and innocence…the chatterbox of Idol…my little shonu…Emon Chatterjee…



It took less than a few minutes for him to start talking to me when we first interacted at Sahil Hotel. Then at Savoy we were neighbours…Chang, Rehan and himself were in 309. We had loads of fun with this fellow keeping us entertained. Whenever Vani & I began conversing in Tamil or Malayalam he began talking in Bengali to us just to irritate us! And then he’d bring in Puja and Sachi (one of the cameramen who was also a Bengali) to join him in this act of his.



It used to be fun to see how both Emon and Shan played their favourite instruments…their babies…their guitars. Emon’s face is worth looking at when he used t admiringly look up at Shan while he played his classical guitar numbers. And Shan used to give him tips to play and we used to look at this teacher-student duo in awe… heheh!



Although I haven’t spent much time with Emon on a personal level there were two incidents which I will never forget in my life…both showed Emon’s naughtiness personified!



There was this one day when we heard loud music being played outside Savoy. It appeared to be coming from the flat opposite to the hotel. After dinner Harshi, Parleen and myself, we went to see what was happening. The flat tenants were having some kind of a party in their parking lot and they were blasting awesome Punjabi numbers after hearing which we couldn’t stay still for even a second! The three of us started dancing right there on the parking lot!! Soon we were joined by Emon, Abhishek , Chang and Rehan. We danced like crazy for a full 45 minutes. Then when the DJ started playing sad songs Emon bent forward and screamed out to them “Oye!! Music change kar Oye!!” we freaked out!! As it is the security guard at Savoy was beginning to look at all of us suspiciously since we were dancing in the middle of the night like some crazy kids! On top of that our fellow screams out loudly to that DJ …thank god the music was loud and hence drained his voice!! Hehe…



Then the second incident happened the night before our first Piano shoot. In the evening Vani and Emon were busy listening to Shan relate some horror stories and by the time Vani came back to our room it was almost 11 in the night. Moreover it was raining heavily that day…Mumbai was having it’s first rains that night! Now Vani had her back towards the window and she was relating the stories she heard to me while I was lying on the bed. All of a sudden we saw someone jump from the window into our room! It was Emon! God that fellow took the life out us! The thing is his room window and our room window are adjacent and there is this platform on which one can travel from one room to another safely…he used this to jump in and scare us!! God seriously we freaked out! And after we gave our dose of “what would have happened if he fell down” he went off to his room to sleep! Naughty to the core that little guy is I tell you!



But he’s a darling what ever said and done…no body can hate this dude…he has a charming personality which attracts everyone! And he gets away with all his mischief giving cute and innocent smiles! Trust me our trip would have been a bore without people like Emon and Sui (Suhit) to keep cracking us up into bits with their cheesy jokes!! I miss all the pranks Emon played on all of us and the crew members…ah..those were the days!



I am happy to see him still going strong on the show…Rock on Emon!!! And whatever whoever says about this dude (you know that he is overconfident and crap) he is what I told you earlier…a bundle of talent with energy gushing out him all the time in the form of mischief! Best of luck l’il fella!!