UDAAN - Talent knows no blindness :)

Man, I can't believe I'm here after so long.
The last time I wrote on these pages on this blog was on September, 11th 2011 and thereafter I decided to give myself a break from reading, not realizing that the decision was going to have a direct impact on my need to regularly write.
But so it was, and so I let it be.
I didn't read the papers, no books, no magazines except only that what I found to be positive and interesting on my facebook and twitter pages.
Positive it had to be. Fun as well!
And here I am, more that six months later, a completely changed person.
Atleast I think so.
No rape, no murders, no bribery, no corruption and absolutely no politics.
I must admit I did get hooked to two soap opera's on an Indian channel and have religiously watched Uttaran and Na maine kucch na tumne kucch kahaa... back to back on most week nights between 10pm and 11pm if I was home and hadn't drifted off for a drive or a coffee with my friend Salim Asgarally, who keeps me smiling and laughing through life and has been doing so since the last seven years now.
On such days I lurked around my mother in the early mornings wanting to know what had happened in the two serials the previous night.
I turned away from news on the television as well as the morning papers every single day.
I had decided to see what my life would be like if I were to know nothing about what is happening around me, neither sound smart when people I was surrounded with were to discuss the events surmounting them.
Obviously I had no choice but to know what was going on because of the frequent outbursts on twitter and facebook when they went ballistic with trending topics, but that was it. No more.
I just never went beyond updates, even if I wanted to.
Life turned into a dream.
I began to laugh and smile and for the first time in the last 15 years that I have been obese, I've completed eight weeks of a diet and am into my ninth week now, not feeling exhausted, nor tired of it.
When people gossiped about celebrities, chatted politics and discussed huge turning points in our social world, I smiled and sat silent, realizing that they could never guess that I knew absolutely zilch about what they were in conversation about.
The truth about ignorance embraced me and gave me a sense of warmth which I'm never going to lose for anything under the sun again.
Slowly as time went by, I felt wasted as a writer and creative person so I dealt with the void by drawing inspiration from music and things of beauty around me.
The timelessness of doing nothing in the mornings, not filling my head with worry about the world around me and that which was distant, instead letting the emptiness bring about a calm that one day became an addiction which I live with today.
Then once I started to write finally, words began to spill out of an emptiness and my own writing which had always been clever and calculated flowed effortlessly from places which I had never known existed within me, and started to surprise me.
I was confident again.
I was armed with my innocence and the power that resided within me again.
I was ready to work, able to articulate what I wanted to do and I was there where I had always wanted to be, at the destination which had always eluded me.
I was in my heart and I could fall to the rythm of its beat.
And it was last night when it all came together at a concert by a band called Udaan.

What started as a mission by two visually impaired, but musically blessed, youngsters, is now an established entity in the music loop. Founded by Keval Liladhar Haria and Deepak Govind Bedsa, rock band Udaan is now a 10-member band — comprising of proficient singers, percussionists, pianists, guitarists and sitar Players. The band is a culmination of the fervent dream of these 10 members. Their versatile repertoire includes Folk, Classical, Western and Bollywood music.

‘Udaan’ that came into existence in 2005, holds a special meaning to many. The band is financially supported by 27-year-old Marzy Parakh, who has been committed to the cause of this blind band through The Faith Foundation — which he started at the young age of 17. The main objective of The Faith Foundation is to bring about a life-altering transformation in the lives of the physically disabled. It also raises funds for the medical treatment and surgery requirements of those genuinely in need from time to time. (source: anfresh.com)

While watching them and moving to their beat I realized how talent knows no blindness and it is a certain blindness which makes you conquer heights and dive to your depths.
I connected with the band in a strange way.
I could feel what they had achieved and when Salim sighed as it ended and told Vickie (our friend) and me that he felt thrilled after listening to and watching the amazing Udaan which made us soar in our hearts, we agreed with him.
Shutting windows and closing doors to look inwards is as amazing an experience as opening the shutters and letting the cool breeze in, because for the breeze to touch you, you neither need to see, nor do you have to know anything.