My unintended choice to live a Sunday

Your much awaited Sunday is a day away. You are desperately looking for options to make the best of it by doing something different—enrolling for a day’s course in candle making, a visit to the national park, organize a cleanliness drive for the residential society…anything! Just when you are scouring for every remote possibility that promised just that, an invitation crops up from the most unexpected quarters. My friend, N, was performing at Prithvi Cafe as part of the Yuva Thespo@Prithvi initiative!

I missed the first few songs and made a grand entry during the first break. My mood was somewhat dampened but the bright cheery faces of my ex colleagues and present colleagues, friends of friends, et al. lifted my spirits. Two pics later, my friend strode across to the podium [a makeshift stage] to attend to the unfinished business. Everything was forgotten when the strumming of the guitar began and the voice oozing charm hit our ears (soul??) with a subtle force that left everyone mesmerized.

One look at the song list and it was clear that N aimed to acquaint us with several beautiful but unexplored songs (by rookies/forgotten artists and even established artists) that didn’t quite receive the acclaim they ought to have received when released. [Every rose has its thorns would be one such song because Poison was a heavy-metal band and this was one of their rare mellow songs—unfortunately, it received criticism as opposed to critical acclaim]. Some cliched romantic numbers [as he put it] and a generous dose of Sting were thrown in to keep the junta going. Since I am decidedly partial to Sting, and considering what a fabulous job N does when it comes to Sting numbers, I would say that Message in a bottle, It’s probably me, Fields of gold were all smashing. The point to be noted here is that Message in a bottle can be rather difficult without percussion (although Sting has a version too—MTV unplugged] and the other two were done to perfection. Roxanne receives a special mention because N did his own version with different jazz styles in the rendition. Five stars and a thumbs up for that…woohoo!! Sting apart, among my favourites he belted out that day were Ground beneath her feet, a John Mayer song [I STILL haven’t figured out the lyrics and that dork has yet to reply to my mail in which I have asked him just that 😦 ], and the song that’s still playing in my head—Unintended. I am at a loss for words when I try to describe the way this song was performed. It was all soul and not even the loud aeroplane take-off could distract the audience. Mesmerizing, spell-binding, dumbfounded—a gamut of emotions aroused by Unintended. Maybe it was the simplicity of the lyrics, the sincerity with which the song was performed, the soulful strings…

This talent stock finally saw some sense last year when he wrote a couple of songs and recorded them while living in a desert land and making money. So we got to hear a couple of these promising songs; you can hear them here [Some people complained that the damn thing doesn’t work…just let me know if you are really desperate to hear em 😀 ].

The mood and the atmosphere were perfect. The sweltering heat somewhat left people miffed but we constantly played hide-and-seek with the sun by shifting spots regularly. I love Prithvi Cafe, its ambiance. There’s coffee when you need it, good songs in this case, informal wooden, rickety benches where I could sit cross legged [soo comfy] and trees. A lunch at Alfredo’s followed where we toasted to N…

My unintended choice to live this Sunday at Prithvi turned out to be the best break from routine I could’ve asked for.