Reality check

It's strange returning to reality after three days at TED, with 1,000 'brilliant minds', as Lakshmi Pratury, TED's host put it. When Lakshmi told me about TED a year ago, I said "Ted who"? I then learned that it is an annual gathering of people, that wish to spread ideas. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment & Design.

Lakshmi also spoke fervently about moments at TED, 'where the attendees' collective consciousness unites in emotion and action. Since I perform conceptual music around the world, I decided to juxtapose Kalarippayattu, an intense martial art form with my abstract electronic sound. I called the piece The Wandering Arrow a reference to Arjuna, hero of the Mahabharata. The Attakalari dance group worked with me.

Sitting in the audience, I had butterflies in my stomach as I thought of my upcoming show. The nature of my performance was 50 per cent preparation and 50 per cent improvisation, not the best formula for the faint-hearted, but it helps me innovate. An added element of uncertainty was synchronising with the dancers as they went through five scenes in nine minutes! I set up my equipment backstage, and I decided to check out the speaker before me. What a speaker! Sunitha Krishnan runs an organisation that rescues and rehabilitates women and children forced into the sex trade. Sunitha, herself was gang-raped. She showed me photos of three girls around five-years-old, who were smiling, with huge sparkling eyes. They had been raped before she could rescue them, she contracted AIDS and then ultimately died. Sunitha also mentioned that she was being evicted by her landlord.

Although I am aware that these things happen, those photos just ripped through me. I also know that the show must go on, but something inside me kept saying,u00a0"I cannot start my performance without acknowledging my feelings. So, there I was on stage, feeling the intensity of the situation, when I noticed that my laptop had frozen! Whether this was divine intervention (as many later remarked) or whether I concocted the glitch to buy time (another theory), what happened next was pure magic. I told the audience that my laptop was temperamental, which quickly drew laughter. In the interim, someone stood up and said she would donate $10,000 to Sunitha's organisation if 10 others would do the same. Within a minute more than 10 people stood up. Over $100,000 in minutes she wouldn't be evicted now!

That evening, many people told me that my request for silence and the little joke helped them move on. The break caused by the technical malfunction offered a transition between the two existing realities, and allowed $100,000 to be raised! This was my magical TED moment.