The wow factor was how well they sang the songs, in Tamil, Hindi, Marathi and Malayalam. It was effortless, melodious and one hardly remembered that these were singers from a country so far away, Uzbekistan.
Right from the National Anthem (theirs and ours) to songs spanning the Raj Kapoor era right down to the madly popular ‘Jimmikki Kammal’ in Malayalam, the four musical siblings who kept the audience at the Hindustan College auditorium riveted were Gulomjanov Khahraman, Gulomjanova Shakhnoza, Gulomjanov Dostonbek and Gulomjanov Robiyakhon.
Paarai performance at the Uzbekistaal concert in Coimbatore
The good factor
Lot of good things happened at the concert. Not the least of it was the Paarai performance right at the beginning. The members of the Aayutham Kalaikalin Sangamam danced to the primordial sound of their Paarai (drums). Simple and powerful were the words that came to mind to describe their music and movement.
But the stars of course were the Uzbeki group who did not charge anything to perform their concert. That was gratifying as was the fact that 300 of the tickets for the evening were sponsored by philanthropic souls across 36 countries. School children from schools across the city trooped in waving the flags of Uzbekistan and India and sang the National Anthems with heart-warming enthusiasm.
The concert was also a fund raiser for the NGO Make a Difference and Shobana Kumar the moving force behind it described the work she and her committed team did. Small Differences took it upon itself to feed the homeless to start with. It then extended its work and now adopt abandoned patients in the General Hospital. Not just that, they are working tirelessly to rehabilitate the transgender community and one of the way they are doing that is to empower them by drawing them into their fold of social work. Many of the transgenders cook food for and look after the abandoned patients in the hospital.
Heartfelt participation
It was particularly encouraging to see so many people turn up for the concert to show their solidarity with the cause. And as Kumar repeatedly pointed it out, many, many people in Coimbatore are still full of heart and there is hope yet for the world.
The proof of that goodness combined with the lively concert by the Havas Guruhi family made the evening extra special. And the international collaboration continued with their accompanying musicians, Boopathi and Manikandan on the tabla, Sunil on the Lead Guitar, Joe on the drums and Ramesh on the electronic pad.
Shahrukh, Rahman and Baji Rao
Claps and cheers greeted the first song, ‘Aankhon mein teriajab si ajab si adayen hain...’ from the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Om Shanti Om. It was A.R.Rahman’s birthday that day and there was a fitting tribute to him with his popular song ‘Nenje ezhu’ from Mariyaan. It was wonderful how they sang it with feeling and verve without a clue about what the lyrics meant! ‘Zoobi doobi zoobi doobi...’ from 3 Idiots , ‘Dost dost naa rahaa’ from Sangam, and ‘Lag jaa gale ke phir yeh haseen raat ho na ho’ from Woh Kaun Thi and the Marathi Lavani number ‘Pinga...’ from Bajirao Mastani kept the various generations in the Hindustan College auditorium happy. When the dancers from Uzbekistan came in the tempo picked up even further. There was a medley of foot-tappers such as ‘Laila Mein Laila’ and ‘Lungi Dance’ to which they danced as well as an Uzbeki dance performance. Appropriately the evening wound up with the evergreen ‘Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani’.
