Spirits haunt Lower Parel Club

24 September,2009 08:22 AM IST |   |  Aastha Atray Banan

Tonight, step into a parallel state of mind as Ashu Pathak and Taufiq Qureshi raise the all-important question of identity, with India's first-ever Rock Opera, I


Tonight, step into a parallel state of mind as Ashu Pathak and Taufiq Qureshi raise the all-important question of identity, with India's first-ever Rock Opera, I

Many a great artist has endeavoured to answer the question, Who am I? Who is this "I" and why am I on this planet? The Pet Shop Boys once sang, "I sometimes think that I'm too many people, too many people, too many people at once, the husband or the hedonist, the businessman or the communist, the artist or the showbiz creep, the lover or the nervous geek".

Taufiq Qureshi

Ashu Pathak


That was 15 years ago. The question continues to haunt us. This time, it's Mumbai musician Ashu Pathak who is dwelling on the ditty, as he gets ready to present his rock opera, I. "I have been writing it for the last three years. I want to present it in a Cirque De Soleil fashion, and plan to make a movie too. Today, I will only be playing just a few songs to get a feel of audience reaction," he says.

The opera, which Ashu says is about the spiritual journey of a soul that wants to become human, deals with issues of identity and its subsequent loss. "A spirit comes to Earth and is faced withe the question of who he really is. He keeps questioning, until somewhere down the line, the I just disappears."


Ashu will be accompanied by master percussionist Taufiq Qureshi, and will play 10 songs, all ambient in nature.

"It's not like an Andrew Webber Lloyd creation, where the focus is on vocals. In my opera, the character becomes the music." The songs will be given that extra edge with 180-degree visual projections that Ashu promises will make "you feel like you are in a dome, surrounded by animated images of what the astral world may look like."

At: Blue Frog, Todi Mills and Co, Lower Parel, on September 24, 10 pm onwards.
Entry: Rs 300.
Call: 40332300

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Taufiq Queresh Ashu Pathak Rock Opera I The Guide Mumbai