The Indian Whistlers' Association’s (IWA) 2nd live whistle concert took place on the 13th of August, 2006 at Bangalore’s Shikshak Sadan, KG Road. It was the second in the series of live shows yet to come, the first being held at Chennai on 18th June, 2006.
We had a press conference on the 12th which was attended by reporters of many Tamil, Kannada, & English newspapers.
Our show was even covered by zee news and some of us were interviewed. I was interviewed first as being the founder of IWA.
if the chennai show- first by IWA was an experiment, thn the
bangalore show was an improvement.
we graduated from 6 whistlers and 500 audience to 11 whistlers and 600+ audience.
In a way, this was at a more grand scale with standards being set for the future in whistling(performance) quality, sound and video recording and organization to the last minuscule detail all planned and taken care of by Kiran Kumar & Himanshu- Jagat uncle’s nephews. Also as compared to 6 whistlers who performed at Chennai, this time we had 11 whistlers giving their best performance so much so that u can’t differentiate between a first-timer and an experienced performer.
After watching the DVD (which has better video and sound quality than the vcd) I remembered what our statistics professor in college used to say, “Exams are like one-day cricket or football match. Its doesn’t matter how hard u have practiced the whole year. What matters is how u perform on the D-day. If ur performance on D-day goes well, the whole battle’s won”.
And it didn’t matter on stage, if they were first-timers or not, what mattered was how they performed on that evening-and it was surely their best.
All first-timers were natural whistlers & cud whistle on songs and just needed the proper guidance to excel, which they got from Jagat uncle. None are artificially created whistlers.
Mr. Govinder Choradia, who has a big pharmaceutical business is now our chief patron, and was very kind enough to sponsor our show right from our travel to other arrangements. Jagat uncle sponsored the T-shirts, bags, acrylic trophies.
I designed a new logo this time which is now final and our standard logo. Its is such that is gives the hint of the Indian flag but doesn’t offend if worn on clothes. The idea of wearing our association t-shirt was suggested to me by my friend and whistler-Karen Patten from the US.
I, Chetan Bhide and Mr. Makki, were from Pune, Aditya Kothari from Mumbai, Jagat uncle, Pooja, charunyanath, Venkat, and Anusuya from Chennai, Nibin from Coimbatore & last but not the least, Sumit from Noida(near Delhi-about 2500kms from Bangalore).
Nibin, Sumit, Pooja, Anusuya, Venkat, Charunyanath were all first-timers on stage, but they were too good.
Chetan, Jagat uncle and I have performed at Chennai and at various other places individually before.
Mr. Makki is the only one among all of us who has performed internationally at the International whistling convention, USA, in 2002.
After listening to all whistlers, if I have to categorize them as per their whistling strengths & pitches, then Chetan, Charun & Aditya, fall in the soft category. Venkat, Sumit & Jagat Uncle fall in the medium category and Mr. Makki, Anusuya, Pooja, Nibin, I come in the strong category. We can go higher and stretch longer.
8yr old Pooja, is our youngest performer, who was our find from our Chennai show, when her father from the audience requested Jagat uncle to give her a chance and she was very good then and even better and more confident now.
And our oldest performer is Jagat uncle, 58. But he is so lively and full of energy that if he didn’t have white hair, u couldn’t tell that he is 58. U cud see him enjoying and dancing while whistling.
Sumit is another very enthusiastic guy after Jagat uncle, who came all the way from Noida, just to be a part of our show, even if we didn’t allow him to go on stage (as we hadn’t heard him fully-just on phone). He was very worried about his whistle being airy but I think that was just psychological, as when he performed on stage, he sounded like a pro.
Nibin’s style of holding the mic and whistling reminds us all of Lord Krishna, who holds the flute in that way. As Jagat uncle rightly said, “his was a flute without a bamboo. A flute from the heavens”. He is very good and has a good sense of music. Infact all here have a good sense of music.
Charun is learning Carnatic classical music and can play the keyboards too. U can recognize his Carnatic influence in his whistling. He whistled solo on Vande Mataram and the National Anthem too, later, at the end of the show.
Venkat is another enthu guy who did very well on stage too. After all it’s the stage performance on that very day that matters.
As Uncle rightly said again,” if I were to judge all these whistlers as per their performance, then it wud be very difficult for me to decide the winner, cause all performed very well”.
So now is the time to bask in the glory of our show being a great success.
And prepare for our next at IIT, Mumbai in December. Till then I will be quite busy with my college and exams.
In the meanwhile we r gonna celebrate the 2nd anniversary of our association on 18th Sept and also have smaller private show in Bangalore in which newer whistlers and Jagat uncle will be performing to keep the tempo going and striking when the iron is hot.
had anyone told me 2yrs ago that this was goona be the future after 2yrs i wud have never believed it.
This year, till now has been very eventful and and has compensated for the last 1.5 years when this
group was dormant. the association has reached such great heights in just last 6months than previous 2years, which I had never thought of and couldn’t without the support of my mom, and all my whistler friends.
I still don’t know whats in store for us next year. Will it be a biig show in Pune or in Singapore? I just don’t know and dont think of either. Let the layers unfold and show us the way!!
Rigveda Deshpandey
Founder, IWA |
