'Jai Ho' A R Rahman Live Show at GMR Arena Hyderabad

A R Rahman Jai Ho Live Concert at Hyderabad.

On October 24, Saturday, there was an A R Rahman live concert held at GMR Arena near Hotel Novotel at Shamshabad Airport Hyderabad, also known as the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. The live show was named 'Jai Ho' for reasons that need not be explained. Sandeep got two tickets for Rs 7,500 each, and all for free! That was more of an incentive for us to go :). Shamshabad airport is 30 kms from our home and though we had taken driving directions from Google Maps, we didn't want to drive back all the way at night. So we took the Aeroexpress bus from near our home deciding to take the Aeroexpress back again.

The show was supposed to start at 7:30 pm. Ours was a sudden decision, so we knew we'd be late by some 30 minutes or so. We were wrong in our estimate coz we had discounted the eccentricities of the Aeroexpress. The 7:30 pm Aeroexpress came in at 8pm (gosh!) and we reached the airport at 9 pm, only to know that GMR Arena was not close to the airport but a few kilometers away. God! We were stuck as to how to get through those few kilometers! How we wished we had got our vehicle. Nevertheless, there was this airport official who directed us to the airport shuttle that would take us around a kilometer to another RTC bus stop, where we would get another shuttle to the GMR Arena! So be it, we thought and took the first shuttle, and then the second shuttle. We were asked to drop off at a place, which was reeking with people, cars, noise, police, security, two wheelers, and a lot of dirty granular stony sandy land. It was the final stop beyond which no vehicles would be allowed, and you would've to walk all the way to the arena. So, you mean that wasnt the arena? Yes, you're right, that was not the arena; the arena was around 1/1.5 kilometers away. And you may ask, how did you guys get there? We walked. Yes, everyone had to walk from that point to the main arena where A R Rahman was singing! Good lord! So we walked. We saw tonnes of people coming back and feared the show may have ended. However, most of those returning were those folks who had the Rs 500 tickets with them. They had to watch the show standing. Standing? Yes, and that too from faaaar off where one could only see the lights at a distance, like we get to see tiny glimpses of lights in the dark from a train. We found lots of people standing at all possible places from where they could at least see just lights and lights and hear music.

We reached the category for the 7500 tickets and was allowed inside after a brief few seconds of what were supposed to be security checks. We entered, my legs paining after the long walk through the coarse sand. However, it was a bursting of the excitement bubble, coz even getting tickets for 7,500 category, all you could see were floating figures on the far off stage.

In addition, Rahman and troupe sang mostly in Tamil, though he has so many of the Hindi numbers. Well probably he did so considering the geographic location of his concert, however, I guess he may already have known by now that there is an equal mix of people from all regions in the job-rich Hyderabad city, and that geographies are mainly blurred lines when it comes to music. I'm sure there were lots of other people who would've expected to hear more Hindi numbers,(I think there were only 3/4 Hindi songs) considering that Hindi movies/songs reign all over the country and Tamil or Bengali or Assamese songs are mostly tied to their locations. No harsh thoughts or discrimination is hinted here, don't get me wrong.

We did enjoy some of the songs though, with all the dazzling lights and the dancing silhouettes, and the fireworks.

However, there was this character, I have no idea who he was, who popped up in the middle of the audience trying to grab attention by uttering some mumbo jumbo. He may have been an RJ, or a self-appointed rapper of sorts, but it looked like he wanted to grab the lens and the media attention, and was definitely the wet-blanket quotient of the entire show.

To top it all, when the concert ended at 10:30 pm. the place was a mess with cars trying to get out, tonnes of people running about, walking, sitting all around, and the police strewn all over with no idea of what to do and how to do the what to dos. The shuttles seemed to have been shut down and we had no idea how to get back, at least to the Aeroexpress stop, leave alone getting back home. We walked, and walked, and walked, through the granular pit-heavy sandy road, through the crowded lanes, through the parking, through snaking lines of people, and then reached the Aeroexpress stop at 11:45 only to know that the next bus would be at 12:30 am. We waited and waited and then finally reached home at 1:30 am.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz the entire of the next day, so tired were our feet.