Wilting at the Weekend: Catching up with the week gone by.

Aaah. I'm so glad the weekend has arrived (for me, it's already begun).

What an exhausting week this has been. As temperatures soared to 36 C, we melted in the heat. With no air-conditioning in sight anywhere, little fans - table tops and hand fans came to the rescue. I've not had so much water in a long time!!!

Tuesday and Wednesday evening were spent dashing off to the Proms. This is my third year at the Albert Hall and I'm looking forward to it every year, which is a good thing :)

Nowhere else can you see a world class perfomance live just for £5, which is what we did on Tuesday watching the Glyndebourne Opera perform Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, a comedy of errors that the movies have probably copied often. On the hottest day of the year, the hall was packed to capacity - hand fans furiously fanning what little air was in circulation inside.

But what a performance!! Even if you didn't understand what they were saying (in Italian), the acting and the expressions were enough to tell you what was happening. I find watching live opera absolutely rivetting. Watching a recording somehow doesn't grip me that much.

On Wednesday, Mr R and I were as close to the Queen as we'll ever get. That evening, the Prom was a special one to commemorate Her Majesty's 80th birthday celebration. QEII was present, (in a white dress with blue flowers and even in the heat, her white gloves) with Prince Philip. The concert premiered 'A little birthday music' with a choir of over 250 children. It was a lovely evening with a brilliant Clarinet Concerto that surely is very familiar to a lot of you. More about the program here.

The Queen came on stage after the interval to present this year's Queen's medal for music to Bryn Terfel, who responded cordially by singing My Little Welsh Home. What a voice!

The audience started an impromptu Happy Birthday after that which was picked up and echoed by different parts of the audience atleast thrice.

It's always advantageous promming just a few feet away from the stage. Do it, atleast once, if you have a chance! Plus you get to be on telly :)

That was back breaking, though. Travelling in and out of London in that heat, standing for hours on end at the Proms and back to work after falling asleep past midnight most nights...I need a vacation.

Yesterday, I was at a course for charities on 'Writing effective bids'. There, I met someone who volunteers with a charity called 'Asha-Nepal', a rescue organisation working with young girls in Nepal and Kamathipura in Mumbai. The volunteer was an elderly man, probably in his 60's. He had stories to tell - some uplifting and encouraging, some expectedly distressing.

There are so many charities doing wonderful work, here in the UK and abroad. It's amazing, how many people give their time, effort and own money to help others. Hope still survives.

Over the weekend, I've got an article deadline for the local paper, a Big Lottery application for the charity to contemplate (slice of a £25 million pie at stake), updating of Charity Matters, a weekend guest and tidying up of this neglected house to do.

And it will be done, IF I can get away from the window or the table fan.

Oh well. Let's start with breakfast first.
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And oh, Mr R will be singing at the Proms this year!!!! He will be part of a 500 strong choir at this Prom. How exciting!! Join us at the Albert Hall if you can! See you there.

A Prom Story

In the past seven days, we have been to more concerts than in the seven months that I have been here. The Proms bug has really bitten hard. Mr.R and I have been taking unprecedented steps to get to London and back. Due to a tunnel collapse two stations from here, our local station does not have any trains operating. Which means we take a replacement bus to the nearest tube station (or drive/park there) and then take a train from there. What used to take us 45 minutes, now takes a hour and half. But we still made it for some concerts - and what performances they have been!!

3 Aug we watched a spellbinding performance by Ravi and Anoushka Shanker. The Royal Albert Hall was packed to the gills, Indians from all over cramming every seat and standing space. The line for the tickets snaked around two blocks and it was good that we managed to get in. The performance, especially by Anoushka was electrifying. You could hear a pin drop. Ravi Shanker's age is telling - he's 85, and it shows. He's still marvelous though.

Mr.R won two seated tickets for the Prom on 5 Aug on a BBC Radio contest. The seats were below the Radio 3 box and we got a fabulous visual view of the orchestra. I reached the RAH early and picked up my ticket. Mr.R who was coming from work, was trying to make it by the 7.30 opening time, but we didn't think he would make it by 8 pm, which was a shame, because it's a long way to travel just to hear 30 minutes worth of music. And then the miracle happened. At 7.30, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra took their place, tuned their instruments and waited for the conductor to start. The audience hushed. And a mike somewhere began to whine. The annoying 'feedback' continued for a while. The audience waited. The young conductor at his RAH debut, waited. The foreign orchestra sat and smiled at the audience. The screeching continued. Five minutes later, the conductor was taken off the stage and an announcement was made that they were trying to find the source of the 'feedback'. This was unprecedented for RAH. I don't think a concert has ever been delayed since it's inception for sound problems - AND this was going out LIVE on Radio 3!! At 8 pm, the orchestra was taken off the stage and the sound still continued. An early interval was announced. People, especially those who had long distance trains to catch, asked for refunds, but there was general merriment all around as prommers enjoyed this historic delay! Mr.R got to see the entire concert, which began at 8.30 and finished a little after 10. Somebody up there wanted him to see the entire performance - he's a lucky man!

Sunday 7 August and we were back in London for an afternoon prom at 4 watching Bobby McFerrin and friends perform for the second time at the Proms. What a performance!!! The man is amazing! Remember him? He wrote and performed the classic 'Don't worry, be happy' which became an anthem for many of us. His vocal improvisations and the things that he can do with his voice are mindblowing! He used his body as a musical instrument, he thumps his chest in time to his voice, making a unique beat ; his fingers tapping on the mike at the same time. He got the audience to sing Ave Maria while he 'sang' the orchestral accompaniment all by himself! Also performing with him that afternoon were the African Children's Choir - a group of 7-11 year olds drawn from the orphaned and destitute children who are receiving their education at several schools in Africa set up by their founder Ray Barnett. 'Impure Thoughts- an ensemble with Michael Woolf on the piano and Badal Roy on the tabla (and two others on drums and bass) completed the picture. The concert was great fun and he received a standing ovation at the end of it.

Last night we were back again to watch Prom # 35 - "a feast of British Music", as the Proms Guide calls it. There was a fantastic performance of a rarely heard violin concerto, one that even I, who knows absolutely nothing of such things, enjoyed thoroughly.

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One meets such varied and interesting people at the Proms. There are the regulars, of course. The one's who stand at the same spot every year. There are some who have been here for decades. This year, for one man, is the 63rd Prom he has attended. Just imagine coming here, for two months every year, for 63 years!! Then there are the people you meet while you stand in the never ending queue for tickets. We've made friends with this Chinese couple, who we kept bumping into in the queue. We've exchanged email addresses and have stayed in touch.

On the Bobby McFerrin concert day, we got talking with an American couple in the line in front of us. Mr.R got into a discussion about American politics and his fervor is endearing! It was an interesting chat, one got to see a different image of Americans and both Mr.R and I enjoyed it. We've exchanged emails and it would be fun to stay in touch. Carol and Charlie, it was nice meeting you and I hope you had a good trip to the UK.

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I hope you MW's have been recovering from the rain and your days are back to 'normal' (whatever that means). You are in our thoughts and prayers. Take care.

A goodbye to July

What a month this has been.

So far, the twenty nine days that have gone by have seen bombs, the first suicide attacks on the UK, destruction of life and property, unprecedented rain in Mumbai, bombings in the Middle East, panic and mayhem around London as police chase anybody suspicious (read 'who looks Asian'), terrorists in our neighborhoods, tornadoes in unsuspecting places and as the Beeb informs me at this very moment, two bombs have just gone off on the motorway in Spain. Sigh.

Atleast the IRA has publicly put down arms. Wonder where all those guns will go now...

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The four suspects in last week's attempted bombing have been arrested. One in Birmingham, two in a Notting Hill raid this morning and one in Rome hiding with his brother. I just can't help marvel at how they traced these guys among millions. And so quickly too. Now if only they can do something similar for Dawood and all the Chota's floating around... Scotland Yard, any ideas?

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So, Mumbai's limping back to normal today. My first monsoon away from the city and I seem to be lucky to have escaped the harrowing days of rain and flooding. My sis, like so many of you, spent the night in the office. A fine tale to tell the grandchildren, but not funny when it actually happens. I shudder at the thought of what the city must look like now. Every year we have the annual flooding, but it has never been so bad. I hope you are all okay and reached home safely without any trouble. I hope the power is back completely and that the phone and internet lines are working fine. I hope you never see another day like that in your lifetime.

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Mr.R and I are off to London for the weekend tomorrow. He's keen on a full session of the Violins at the Prom tomorrow, so we have booked a B&B at Hyde Park - we can just walk back from the Albert Hall after the concert and fall asleep, instead of trudging back home running for the last train. I hope the weekend is incident-free. There are no guarantees these days. Pray for us.

Update on Monday! By then we should be safely in August and hope the madness is on decline. See you then and take care.

The Music of (our) Life

If its July, it's Prom Season. To maintain marital harmony during the next two months (July-September each year), Mr.R and I have reached a unstated agreement of sorts, which is working wonderfully to our individual advantage. Most evenings from 7.30-9.30, we part ways. Mr.R watches/listens to the concert on BBC3/BBCRadio. I move the laptop to the spare room or the bedroom and catch up with my writing. I don't interrupt him during these two hours, not even for dinner. I stay out of his way and gift myself two hours of uninterrupted writing time. It is a blessing, I think, to have time out for yourself. At times like this I remind myself of how important it is to continue doing the things you want to do, to be able to retain your individuality even though you are part of a couple. A verse on Marriage from Gibran's 'The Prophet' comes to mind...

..Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
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We went for our first (for this season) Prom concert at the Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday. Mr.R and I both took the day off spending time at the National Portrait gallery looking at an exhibition of the "World's Most Photographed" and others. The Prom itself was fun. We waited for tickets for the 'Arena' (the non-seating part of the Albert Hall, which is packed each evening with the most dedicated prommers - they even have season tickets to stand!) and the line stretched long beyond the block. Managed to get in eventually. This was my first time in the Arena. The atmosphere was marvellous. We were a few yards away from the orchestra stage. There were the BBC cameras all over the place - the Proms go out live every evening on telly and radio. There were people sitting on the floor and some standing. (You can get an idea from the picture.) When the orchestra plays, most people in the Arena stand and listen, and some sit. Whatever you choose, it's simply marvellous being so close and breathing in the silence. My favorite bit of listening to classical music is revelling in the silence that absolutely must accompany it. You cannot listen to the music with noise around; it just doesn't go together. The silence just envelopes you and even though there are a thousand people all around you, some close enough to be breathing down your neck, you can hear a pin drop or a tummy rumble.