The French Kiss

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The Return of Lure

And that's how it all happened. In one jiffy. Between the song singing, note-making and idle talk at office yesterday. Clear as water. I will remember the pig-tailed one for a long time. I am a 'looking-for-signs' person. That is how I had landed my job in the industry. Driving back home one summer afternoon when I held a job as a Business Analyst, I made up this dream profile of a job. I didn't know it actually existed. I requested the driver to hand me a piece of paper and put down exactly 4 companies. There were a lot more, but I chose 4..random, maybe not that random. I liked the music they produced and that got them to go up on my list. And that was to become my fixation for the coming months. A couple of weeks later I quit, claiming my calling was elsewhere, sat at home, dropped my CV with every single contact point at the 4 companies and 3 months later, I had the job.

Over 3 years now from that day, a similar feeling has gripped me. Only it is to chase MY real dream this time, not someone else's. And when I saw our 'new find' of the season, being what she is, doing what she does best, never once pandering to the idiotic whims of the glamour world, I think and feel almost uncontrollably convinced, that it is time I am on the other side. And with the same zest and perseverance as before, I will move now, living each day such that it takes me closer to what is really me.

I hope someone got that loud and clear!

We still make 'em..err..find 'em!

We launched a new artiste today. It was not done with as much fan-fare as is wont of most artiste or product launches. But hey, what I saw today was something unique. Between all the cribbing about company policies, management, HR and more specifically, bosses...here was a company that played it by the ear, literally; placed its faith in an artiste, turned a deaf ear (all intentional, yes :-)) to the trade pooh-pooh'ing and went straight ahead with its instincts. All credit to S for spear-heading the project as the A&R brain behind it. For the uninitiated, A&R is common industry parlance for Artiste & Repertoire, and yes our job is to find new artistes, make the world take notice of them and pat ourselves for doing a good job.

It will be a while until we know if the pat goes on his back or ends up falling on his bum, but I tell you, this is the thrill of discovering talent. Amidst the innumerable talent shows where a majority of good singers are lost to better looking, gyrating babes or dudes donning dark-glasses (indoors), here we had a lady from a small town, hair tied in pigtails, her best pick for the evening showcase being a bandhani salwar kameez worn under a thick black sweater, sans make-up. She walked into office and sat between us all. We exchanged some trivia on songs. There were grumpy-faced finance and admin chappies drowning their faces in paper-work and other product managers singing along tracks of their proud project launches – no one took notice of who had just walked in. Whispers turned into shameless muttering. When it was becoming too obvious, non-verbal communication took over. One open-mouthed contortion was returned with a set of knit eyebrows and soon enough we had our own version of Pushpak in office. Until, our lady decided to break into ‘Raah Mein Bichhi Hain’ from Sardari Begum. She silenced us all. Suddenly she looked like a goddess. One hour later, everyone was campaigning for her, calls were made and emails were sent to friends/colleagues/business associates pleading them to just come and sample her voice – “You don’t have to cover the function, don’t write about her, just come and listen to her sing”.

And the evening began to a small, private audience and she had us all. “Pritam will take her!”, “One movie and she will be set”, “kya pakad hai…wah”, “The return of young Abida” – the compliments flowed. She didn’t know how to handle it. “It is very cold today isn’t it?” she said with a smile, to almost everyone, and tried to melt into the crowd, joining the cue for snacks.

It wasn’t the best music I have heard or anything. She has a long way to go, lot of stage presence to build, a lot of improvisations to bring to her songs, but that isn’t the point of this all. We made someone’s dream come true. We, the biggest label, gave her the platform to showcase her talent until a Bollywood biggie whisks her away from us. And they would never know, she would probably never say, but our find she will always be, the one with 2 little pigtails.