The Pulse with Zakir Hussain

Last night I got the opportunity to watch Ustad Zakir Hussain live in a concert in Jnana Jyothi Auditorium in Bangalore. An exclusive solo tabla recital of Zakir Hussain was like dream come true. The concert was started with a performance from famous violinist Deepak Pandit. Deepak Pandit has accompanied Jagjit Singh for over three decades. Here he was accompained with Heera Pandit on tabla, Rajesh Rajbhatt on drum and Santosh Mulekar on keyboard. It was a very young team when we talk of Indian classical music. They played fusion music, performing most of the ragas. Their performance was applauded by the audience. After the performance from Deepak Pandit and team, time came for the Ustad Zakir Hussian to come on stage. Whole auditorium was standing in respect of him. He was accompanied by young Dilshan Khan on Sarangi. Once the stage was set for Zakir, people were lost in magic of his fingers. These two instruments was played well synchronized and won the hearts of the people there. Zakir played a lot of compositions and earned a lot of appluads from audience. I am not a music expert so can not explain in detail and techniques of his masterpiece performance but can easily say that he touched everyone's pulse with his tabla recital.

New Year Day in Anthargange

We started our new year with a short but great trip of Anthargange temple which is situatated on Kolar hills and only 70KMS from Bangalore. I read about Kolar Gold mines in my childhood. Kolar Gold Fields called as KGF is abondoned now but for travelers and explorers it can be treasure including Anthargange, Kolar hills, Kotilingeshwara, Avani temple and Chikka Trirupati. We planned for Anthargange and started our journey from Marathalli at ten o' clock, drove towards Hoskote through Hope farm junction . Road to Hoskote was nice and once we hit NH4 just before Hoskote it was very wide and completly traffic free. In next half an hour we took our break at a Cafe Coffee Day outlet. We had a good coffee, some good photo shots and moved again for Kolar. Landscape on both sides of road after that was a rocky terrain. In next fifteen minutes we reached to Kolar town. There we met Sumanth who was a localite and friend of Sumit bhaiya. He guided us to reach Anthargange temple or Kolar hills which is about 3KMS from Kolar town. We parked our bikes there and moved towards the temple. There were a lot of monkeys on hills and on the way to temple. It was very crowded there because of new year day otherwise these monkeys could have been frightening for travelers. It was about two hundred steps to go up and reach the temple. On top we saw the Antharagange temple which has its mythological significance of Ramyana era. Just near the temple, there is a natural spring which is believed to be as pious as Ganga. Water coming out of this is natural and pure. Water comes out from the small cleft and fill the diagonal pond underneath it. Unfortunately it was dirty probably because the people take bath there.

After visiting the temple, we climbed up the hill. It was a perfect place for trekking and cave exploration. There are villages on the hills and it would have been a great idea to explore the Kolar hills a further more. After climbing little further on the rocky hills, we could see the panoramic view of Kolar town. We decided to come down after having some good photos of the hills range. From Kolar hills we went to the Chinmaya Ashram near to the town. We parked our bikes there and had the home made delicious lunch. We started back for Bangalore after that. Driving on NH4 was fun and we touched the 100KM/hr. We reached back to home in next one hour after a non stop drive.