I began to laugh and smile more and for the first time in the last 15 years that I have been overweight, I’ve completed eight weeks of a diet and am 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 and 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 into the rhythm 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. 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 for many. The band is financially supported by 27-year-old Marzy Parakh, who has been committed to the cause of this visually challanged 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.
****
While watching them and moving to their beat I realized how talent knows no darkness and it is a certain tunnel vision or even blindness to anything but your goal which makes you conquer heights and dive into your deepest depths. I connected with the band in a strange way.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.
Vinta Nanda is a film maker, writer and social activist. She has written, directed and/or produced trail blazing TV shows like Tara, Raahat, Kabhie Kabhie, Aur Phir Ek Din and Miilee and also made several documentary films on women’s issues. Her first feature film, White Noise won acclaim at the Kara Film Festival, Pune International Film Festival, Florence and Seattle Indian Film Festivals. Vinta blogs on www.vinatananda.blogspot.com and has written forThe Times of India, Tehelka, Indian Express, Mumbai Mirror, Sahara Times and Mid Day. Vinta is also the President of the NGO ‘The Village Project India,’ is producing two TV shows and will be producing and directing her next feature Zindagi Paradiso shortly.