The last one and a half years of my life have had some of the best days that i would cherish for the rest of my life. It all started during November 2007 when i first went to meet a set of AR RAHMAN fans at Anna nagar, thanks to Orkut. We met at Music world, an apt place i thought. The first set of fans i met included John, Narayan, Vithur, Karthik, Jayanth and Ganesh. It was such a great occasion to mingle with these fans. (That night i hadn't realised that these people would become such a great part of my life so soon. I never ever imagined strangers could grow so close, and unite under one name- Rahmaniacs.)
What followed that evening was series of weekend meets with many new faces coming in. The following week we started planning on what we could do to celebrate AR RAHMAN sir's Birthday. That was when I met other fans namely, Anees, Balaji, Arun, Baradwaj etc. We met at coffee day n discussed plans. It was like a Business meet. We shared our Knowledge about ARR first, then went on to discuss about the B'day plans. We came up with various plans like doing a special show in a Radio station about ARR n stuff like that. But the idea was not all that convincing.
So the following weekend we met again. This time it was at Alan's office. We discussed various ideas before Alan suggested that we sponsor food and other amenities to some Orphanage. That idea bloomed into a great one and we pitched up right away.. The weeks that follewed saw us searching for an orphanage in the city. We ended up at Nethrodaya, a place which housed visually challenged students and aided them in their studies and other important stuff..
On 30th December, 2007, we conducted a program at nethrodaya. We sponsored their lunch.
A week before that I formed a music band off the various hugely talented musicians from the fans group. Many of them volunteered. What turned out was a great blend of musicians(exclude me) coming together and performing for the students of Nethrodaya. They enjoyed it. The band played various AR hits.
Singer shalini was amongst us that day. She cut a cake that we had made for celebrating AR's birthday. She cut it n distributed them to the students there.
The show was a real hit amongst AR fans. Many fans wanted to join us and it became a small revolution of sorts.On Jan 6th, 2008 we met AR for the first time. It was an unforgettable experience and the visuals of the day r still on my mind, as fresh as ever.
Meeting AR was like adding petrol to fire, i mean it was such a big motivation for all of us tt we started doing social service on a weekly basis. We distribute food for the needy people on the road sides. This is how we come about it: We meet at a place(usually outside KM music conservatory). We pool in money. And there's no lower or upper limit to the contribution. With the money that is collected we buy food packets. Usually some variety of rice (Sambar, curd, tomatoe etc). We set off with the food in bikes around the city and give it out to the most needy. Sometimes when we find people sleeping on the road sides, we just keep the food near them. Nothing can match the happiness that u find on them when they wake up hungry, to find food beside. :-) And that happiness is our blessing..
This has been on for more than a Year now. it's such a heart filling experince to serve the poor people.
All this has changed me, personaly. There is so much to life than just work and play and family and friends. There's so much happening around us, both good and bad. And in some way or the other we are all part of all the happenings. And we can make a huge difference to the world around us by indulging and involving ourselves in the worldly affairs. Instead of just sitting indoors and brooding about tpoverty in the country and stuff like that, come out into the open and try and make a difference. Our lives are too short to cry about the past or think about the future. All we have is the present. It is upto us to realize this truth and start acting in the present, to make a small difference around ourselves.
It is only my love for music and AR, that has made me realize this. And u will have that special something that will make u realize what life is.. Just keep searching.. Because remember, anytime "The Search is more important than the Destination."
