sing; c) interact with British musicians and technicians; d) give live interviews on radio; e) appear on television... and all this in English, in England.
For a middle-aged woman who had never been to school, let alone spoken a complete English sentence, this, I thought, was an impossibility. I was appalled. What happened was, I had the stomach runs for a month, while she diligently rose at 4 am, donned her Walkman, and heard 'Spoken English' cassettes for hours. Well, she did it all: entered the Top-20 charts with her song Ave Maria,, appeared on British and German television, spoke lucidly on radio interviews, addressed the British press -- all with her usual unfazed panache.
Her spirit reaches dizzying heights during concert tours. In 1989, during the US tour, she underwent the most rigorous schedule ever devised. We had to play 13 cities in 20 days, which entailed cross-country red-eyes taken barely a few hours after the completion of each show. Every musician was sapped by the time we boarded the plane immediately after the last concert in Houston, Texas. But were we going home? No. We were on our way for yet another gig -- in Stockholm, Sweden. This journey was the proverbial last straw: Aai suffered a massive attack of colitis, together with fever, cough and weakness. The very first result of even one of these complaints is trembling of the voice, which then 'splits' into two, and Aai had 'em all.
At the pre-concert crisis meeting in Stockholm, it was decided by Anand and the sponsors that short of cancelling the gig, the only way out was that the orchestra should play umpteen instrumental tracks, the accompanying singers (Suresh Wadkar and yours truly) shoulder the load, and the billed star make a cursory appearance. Whic ..... |
