SERENDIPITY

I have never been quite sure about my luck with the lottery. Cash or any other kind.

However that does not stop me from entering contests. The only thing I don’t do is buy tickets for any of these schemes…. That I believe is foolish… its just a gamble.

Anyway that’s besides the point coz last week as I was driving back from Dubai on Saturday afternoon after a long hectic weekend, I got a call from the National newspaper saying I had won 2 tickets for a concert.

I had entered a contest online and forgotten about it till that call.

I had won passes for “The Magical Music of Walt Disney” conducted by the London Philharmonia Orchestra at the Emirates Palace Hotel.

Western Classical Orchestral Music is not to everyone’s taste but when it is played to evergreen Disney tracks they then become a perfect fusion of classical and popular cultures.

And anyhow Disney songs have always had a habit of seeping into our unconscious so that even a stray bar here or a tune there instantly takes us back to that file in our memory that is marked with a fond smile.

We all have our own fond memories of various Disney numbers...

Having performed as one of the dwarfs in a major school production of Snow White I can’t help but be transported back to class 3 the moment I hear “Heigh Ho” or “Whistle While You Work”.

Sometimes its another memory that gets triggered like the time I tried to sit 3 young boisterous nephews on my lap as they squealed their way through Jungle Book. How can I not remember that whenever I hear “The Bare Necessities?”

As the Orchestra’s musical director put it so well, “to clinch the argument about the memorable quality of Disney music, what’s the longest word most of us can say without pausing to think how its pronounced? That would be Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from Mary Poppins.

The Philharmonia is traveling around the world and if any of you get a chance to catch it in your cities, it’s a concert not to be missed. Even if you have to pay….

It will remind you of a time when things were so much more simple and no recession in sight….


Luv

Vish

P.S. Below is a short 41 sec clip of a part of the concert taken furtively on my mobile so the pic quality is not too great... great sound though considering we weren't front row center.

Enjoy