Aspirations - A show for the Fight against Terrorism

was organized by the Kochi Police Force and I was honoured to be a part of it.
K J Yesudass sir to Mamooty, Mohanlal, Parvathy Omanakuttan, Jairam, Ashish Vidyarthi.. the entire gamut of invitees were the top brass of Malayalam Filmdom. Probably Naresh Iyer and I were the only singers flown in from Chennai. The show was to bring about an awareness and rally the people against terrorism.
The most important point that was driven home was that terrorism has no religion and no religion advocates any such thing.
One of the nicest things was when the CoP gave me a call and asked me to be a part of the show. I thought it was unnecessary for someone of his stature to call me and was touched by the simplicity and the adherence to protocol.
The show started on dot. Can you believe that? 6.30 PM IST. It was also telecast live on People's channel.
The audience of Cochin, in all these years, I have noticed find it to be a huge effort to cheer or clap for anybody. They are mute spectators. I have heard several performers from Kerala say that this is the case in Cochin and Trivandrum. And they love to perform outside their borders just for the amount of appreciation that the crowd gives.
I sang Kannathil Muthamittal. Sivamani sir gave this super performance, once with Sri Jairam and once by himself. He used his suitcase and an empty bubble top water can in his list of percussive "instruments". Wow. Stephen Devassy was playing for us and it was awesome to have him play for KMI. Naresh sang Rubaroo and Pappu can't dance with Sayonara who joined in for the latter. I m unable to describe or list what happened yesterday mostly because I am unfamiliar with the songs and also its really tough to describe the goings-on when it is in a language you don't completely follow.
The performances were interspersed with the stars of Malayalam cinema address the gathering on the need to fight terrorism together.
It was extremely well put together, considering the arterial roads in Cochin, lack of parking space around the arena, as much as I saw it. I wonder how they pulled it off with a crowd of 15,000 +
I marveled at the sheer execution.
Only thing that was irksome - not many seem to care for the National Anthem. When the anthem starts playing, people think its like the end credits of a movie or something, during which time they can walk about, take pictures, talk and whatnot. Even those in the armed forces. I just hope we can learn to respect our anthem better.