Stuff dreams are made of!

January 26, 1992 - A nationwide announcement is made proclaiming the Padma award winners for the year. On the list is Pt Hari Prasad Chaurasia, a Padma Bhushan awardee. I was one of the many friends/well-wishers to congratulate him.

Soon after, I was accepted as a part of the Chaurasia family and was given the honor of managing his correspondence, concert enquiries, ticket bookings, etc. My first lesson in ‘Artiste Management’!

Sometime in February/March a letter arrived from the Home Ministry intimating Panditji of the date of the award ceremony, 6 April!

One of the interesting aspects of a Padma award ceremony is the rehearsal that is conducted at the venue, the Rashtrapati Bhavan a couple of days prior to the actual ceremony. The date that year for the same was 4 April.

As luck would have it, Panditiji had a prior commitment for a concert in Paris for the same day. He asked me to respond to the letter saying he would not be present at the same but would ensure being there on the 6th. He also indicated that Geetha Balsaara would represent him at the rehearsal!!!

Well, Panditji’s request was accepted and I, Geetha Balsaara was to legally ‘impersonate’ Pt Hari Prasad Chaurasia at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi!

On April 3, even as Mrs Anuradha Chaurasia boarded an airplane from Bombay, I did the same from Indore where I was for a business meeting. We arrived in New Delhi and were escorted to Hotel Janpath.

On the morning of the 4th, we drove down to the majestic Rashtrapati Bhavan which I had only viewed from the outside on one of my visits to the city a decade ago. As we got to the Ashoka Hall, I was led to the seat marked ‘Pt Chaurasia’, while Mrs Chaurasia took her seat in the audience. Every ‘original’ awardee was present and seated just as the proceedings began.

Each awardee’s name is called out and he/she is expected to walk over the red carpet leading to the President, greet his Highness, accept the award and return to his/her seat. The only difference being, at the rehearsal it is a dummy President! Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasia! Suddenly all eyes turn towards this young lady walking down the red carpet. If only those present could hear my heart pounding away, they’d have wondered how Panditji’s name was being accompanied by the rhythmic ‘lub dub’ of a human heart!

Having finished with the ceremony, all the awardees are expected to move into the inner hall for a high tea ceremony with the President. Yes, the rehearsal also included this bit and the ‘chai’ being served was real! At this ‘chai’ session, I was ‘assaulted’ by many enquiring after Panditji. One of the interesting encounters I had was with Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee who was then the Padma Vibhushan awardee. He came up to me and jocularly said ‘hame nahin pata tha ke duplicate ko bheja ja sakta hai’ to which I humbly replied ‘main Panditji ki duplicate bilkul nahin hoon, Main to sirf unki bhakth hoon jisko yeh mauka diya gaya hai’!

Soon after the tea session we were asked to gather in the beautiful Moghul garden on the rear side of the Rashtrapati Bhavan for a photography session. Each awardee was assigned his/her position for the ‘real’ session to be held soon after the ‘real’ award ceremony.

6 April, early hours, New Delhi airport. Mrs Chaurasia and I receive Panditji and drive back to the hotel to dress for ‘the’ ceremony. Even as Panditji was shaving I felt it was my duty to ‘impart’ the knowledge I’d imbibed as a dummy awardee! He was amused by my entire account and kept reassuring me that he’d do just fine. Seeing that mischievous look on his face made me question myself as to how difficult would it be for someone capable of making the ‘Bansuri’ sing, to just follow the actions of the previous recipient! To him, this entire exercise was to give me an experience of a lifetime! A memory so deeply etched, that even 17 years later I vividly recall each frame and construct the happenings of that day as it unfolded!

We arrived at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and took our seats, me adjacent to Mrs Chaurasia, now in the audience! Even as all the awardees took their seats my eyes scanned the entire space to assure myself of it all being real! Just as my eyes swept across the faces present, I noticed a face, beyond which my eyes refused to move! Mr Amitabh Bachchan!! He was there accompanying Smt Jaya Bachchan, a Padma awardee herself.

My growing up years associated Hindi films with only one entity, Mr Amitabh Bachchan! And here he was in flesh and blood!

Soon after the award function, we moved to the area for high tea. The President, Shri R.Venkatraman came around and met each one present. No doubt it was a privileged moment for me but I was extremely distracted by those penetrating eyes from across the room! My Idol, my God, was just a few feet away….I became adamant (a trait Panditji hadn’t experienced until then) refusing to move out of there until a formal introduction was made. God was on my side and I noticed both, Mr and Mrs Bachchan gravitate towards Panditji. My heart raced faster and I clutched on to an invisible power, lest I lose consciousness. Panditji was gracious enough to introduce me. One of those rare moments when the decision of joining palms in a Namaskar vis-à-vis extending palm for a handshake became a life and death situation…how could I let go of an opportunity to ‘touch’ my God!
In retrospect, that must’ve been one of my clumsiest greetings to date!

The wealth I came back with could not have been stacked away in any locker or treasure chest. It was deposited in my memory bank account and each time I take a dip there, I come back enriched!