When you like a celebrity, you tend to read / hear / watch more about them, be it their interview in some magazine or on some TV channel or be it in some books or internet or any information source like wikipedia etc. All that creates an impression of that person on your mind. You tend to think in some specific way about the nature of that person. If they speak rudely / politely in some interview (after editing and all), you tend to believe them to be the same in their real life. If you know about how they have spent their childhood like which place, what kind of atmosphere etc., you tend to make some conclusions about their behavior or their stand in some particular situation.
Well, but is that all correct what you expect and conclude? Btw, just a bit off-track.. but this is the heterogeneous data that you have been purposefully collecting / have indirectly accumulated with you, on which you try to find patterns - well, data mining in everybody's life! :)
okay, back on track.. so are all these patterns found correct? I don't think; they will mostly be wrong. The reason is simple. They are "celebrities" - it's said that, celebrities never tell truth. They will speak anything and everything that helps them get sympathy / appreciation from common people so that it will somehow help them grow in their respective fields. Hmm.. I believe in this, and still I always had a hope to find at least one person who is celebrity but still is true at heart, someone who is true to himself/herself, someone who will behave as an ordinary person when in crowd and not like a celebrity, someone whose presence will make you feel being closer to them and not widen the distance between you - an ordinary one and them - the celebrity. I was just hoping to come across someone like that, and guess what! I got that beautiful experience yesterday at spicmacay!
I am assuming those who have read till this paragraph are willing to proceed further and if yes, they know about Aarati Ankalikar-Tikekar, Hindustani classical vocalist belonging to Gwalior gharana. If you don't, google on her name.
Here is one source. When it comes to music, since I was child, I was more attracted towards marathi old songs - bhaavgeet, bhaktigeet, naatygeet, movie songs and old hindi songs - mostly bollywood music. As no one from my family or even from the largest possible set of relatives ever learned 'm' of music, classical music was way too far for me. The only bridge which connected me to classical was via Bhimsen Joshi's casettes which my uncle used to bring as he liked them and via natyasangeet - which I feel is sometimes classcial music based. (I might be wrong, I still am very weak in those technicalities of Hindustani music.) In such setting, forget about listening to people like - Kishori Amonkar and other gems of classical vocal.
I don't exactly remember when, but I once watched a short T.V. performance by Aarati Ankalikar-Tikekar. That was my first ever face-to-face meet with classical vocal, I guess. The 2 things I liked then - her voice quality and that she is beautiful. - See, how dumb I was then to understand classical music!! I didn't understand how well she sung and what was her approach to presenting that particular raaga, but all I could get is - she is very enthusiastic while she is singing. (I hope, I can understand little more now.) But, to be frank - her fresh face is the first ever impression that I got about her. And, coming back to this again, I purposefully started seeking information about her. I made for myself some image of how she is, what she feels about her art, what is her approach towards classical music, how is she as a person, and many such things. As I never started classical training for myself seriously and could hear her as a part of SareGaMaPa (marathi), when her non/semi-classical songs were rendered by the participants and once when she herself was present as a judge and had performed. I always had a wish to watch her performance live.
And then I saw this poster at the hostel about "Spicmacay" performance. I went there yesterday. It was for the first time that the performer (like Aarati Ankalikar-Tikekar) was walking through the audience and heading towards the stage to perform. She was as fresh and enthusiastic as she was in the first T.V. performance which I had seen. She started apologizing for being late though it was not too much delay. And, this made me feel closer to her - a feeling like - yes, this is how I had expected her to be! One prediction was correct! :)
Then she spoke about what she feels about "Hindustani Classical Vocal". These days, when people feel worried about the future of classical music, which seems to be kind-of lost in the crowd of other types of music, she was very determined on her views. She quoted one of the saying of her Guru - "Classical music is not for manoranjan, but it is for Aatmranjan". I liked it a lot. She even said that classical is really not for the mass but it is meant for the "class" audience and those who are dedicated to it, who have understood the true sense of classical music, they will be happy even when just 10 people come to take that experience as against the mass going towards other kind of music. But, while speaking all this, her face was filled with calm and quite expressions as though she knows the ultimate truth and there was no reason to fear / worry / explain / make her point. And, one more prediction was correct!
Well, her performance was so nice that someone like me who really is too weak in classical music, can't even find perfect words for it. She explained a 9.5 maatraa taal in such a nice way!! It was a new thing to me, and initially I was confused when I was trying to make the beats with my hand. But, after she explained it, wow!! :)
Yesterday evening thus blessed me with 2 wonderful experiences. One of course, my wish of watching her perform was fulfilled and the other, I could find someone who is a celebrity and true with themselves with almost all my patterns and conclusion turning to be true!
(Note: Photo taken from here.)
Note - above photo link seems like a dead one
