A Trip to Remember

Duration - 6 days
Destination - Chicago,IL,USA
Kms travelled - 1897
Gas - 165 ltrs
Achieved - A memory for lifetime

This wasn't any ordinary trip, it was trip D was looking forward to. An opportunity he dreamt of for a very long time. We set out in high hopes, with lots of prayers and D with lots of practise. Last few days he sang everywhere, bathroom, kitchen, elevator, in the car. Constantly practising, making every note sound perfect, making every song a treat to listen.

Everyone who knows me says I am lucky coz D would sing for me.No, D hardly sings for me, and he sings for me when I am not around.One time he made a dedication on his audio blog when I was in India.D isnt big on expressing his feelings, he expects me to understand what he doesnt say.

Well, back to the trip, we started on the 30th June, drove past Detroit and stayed at a hotel for the night in Ann Arbor. We could have driven till chicago, but dint want to tire ourselves.It was important D feels fresh and ready to take on the contest in his best form.When we reached chicago, the pressure was mounting. The dates for the competition had moved and the orchestra was not there as their visa's were denied, they had called in the local orchestra.D was scrambling to find karaoke tracks for the songs the orchestra wasnt sure they could play.We did not take laptop.So we bought one, this was important for D and we were going to do everything in our capacity to make it work.

The day the contestants were supposed to have semifinals, all the singers were asked to sing in the banquet.So D had to find a song with a karoke track, something which shouldnt be part of the songs they selected for the competition. Finally he settled for a song and as he was in his mind practising the song I was sitting there with my eyes wide open everytime a celebrity passed. I stared at ever TV,Movie actors, singers, lyricists as they passed. This was the first time I was seeing them in person and wondering how some looked much better on TV and some looked much better in person.

D and his fellow contestants, thronged to meet Mano garu, SiriVennela Sitarama Sastry garu and took pictures, those who know us will see the pics soon :)

Left past midnight from the banquet and I hit the bed as soon as we reached the hotel room.D stayed up much longer practising his songs.

Next day was rushing again. D left around 11 and I joined him just before the semifinals started. As I reached the convention center, my palms started to sweat. I never had been this nervous for anything. If you know someone who had worked hard and was this close to taking another step to be closer to his dream, everything counts.Failure was NOT an option.

D was the last of 13. I have to mention here, D is superstitious about number 13.He had prepared for 'Tholi Sandhya velalo' for this round, but the orchestra wasnt sure they could play it, he had spent time with them practising pallavi and charanam, but when the competition started everyone was asked to sing full song.D was getting tensed as he wasnt sure if the orchestra could pull off the whole song without playing it even once.He kept going back and forth with the song of his choice and another song and finally he decided to go with his second choice as he did not want the music to be an issue.

He began to sing his second choice"Mallelu poosae...",When he started I could sense a little bit of tension in his voice and after a couple of lines, he gained confidence and was in his groove,it was him doing what he loves to do and he did a great job. The judges remarked the same , Mano said he started off softly and just when they were thinking he was an average singer, he wowed them. I shot D's performance and judges comments with my digital camera.We werent thinking of taking camcorder with us, and the focus of our trip was D's singing and we missed details like this.I should say I missed the details, I should have brought a camorder.But anyways something is better than nothing.(I am praying some good samaritan must have recorded it well and will upload in youtube soon!!). Btw, 13 is no longer a bad number in D's books :)

One round finished, 2 more to go before victory can be D's. We rushed back to hotel to see if D can practise a little bit more. Even before we reached the hotel, he got call saying he needed to be there to practise with whatever live orchestra was there. We drove back to the convention center.D went to practise room and I roamed around the stalls to see the latest in diamond jewellery and sarees. I loved diamond jewellery, but couldnt afford it.Maybe when D gets a few offers to sing then I probably can(Music Directors are you listening??)

It was time for the second round of semifinals, I was backstage.D is worried when I am around, he is worried where I will sit, how long I need to stand there.To make things easy I volunteered to go and sit in the auditorium and will watch him sing on stage. It was so crowded that I sat somewhere far right in the end.Thankfully there were big screens all over so I could watch him sing fine.He was the 3rd singer and he sang one of my favorite songs "Vedam la ghoshinche godavari..." and he did an excellent job.First few lines, the orchestra and D were off by a few seconds so the music did not match that well, but after that it was a treat to listen. The judges liked it, Mano pointed out the misco-ordination with the orchestra. All the other judges looked pleased with the job he did.

Then it was the results where the finalists were to be selected. They called D's name second. I let out a big sigh, would be lying if I said my eyes dint well up. He was now closer to winning and it took another 3 minute performance to decide if this trip was worth it.

For the finals, the judges decided it would be without music.You just had to sing pallavi and charanam and the judges wont offer any criticism for each singer.It was getting late,the 3 finalists did an excellent job. And when the winner was announced by Suma,I let it go and let the tears take over.There he was, my man standing on the stage in front of a huge crowd at almost 2:30am claiming his dream.You make my proud Dude.






I have a lot of people congratulating me.Honestly I havent done anything spectacular.I was just a co-traveller in his journey.There are many more miles to go and this is just the beginning.But I humbly accept all the best wishes because as his 'Ardhaangi'(better half) I get half of everything, good or bad ;)

If some of you had read my previous posts, you would know none of trips ends without something interesting happening.So when we reached home Sunday at 11:00pm, we got off the lift in our floor and could hear loud music, as we got closer to our apartment we could hear they were hindi songs, I and D looked at each other, as if saying how rude the people were to play music so loud and closer we got to our apartment we realised it was from our house!!! and there was a note stuck to our door asking us to lower the volume and that our neighbours were having hard time sleeping. I quickly opened the door and found light switched on in bedroom and music playing in computer.Switched off the speaker volume and wondered how the songs started to play automatically.Soon realised that when D was trying to find karaoke's he'd logged into our home computer and mistakenly must have opened iTunes and it went on playing for 3 full days.Looked like the building Superintendent came in,switched on the light and couldnt figure out where the music was coming from, in fear looks like he forgot to switch the light off!!! We lived up to our reputation, no trip without an adventure..huh!!!!

I close this post with a famous quote by Robert Collier, which is apt for D
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."