A concerted effort

As Placido Domingo descended on Mumbai, (since tenors are generally very large men or sometimes even a group of men sharing one voice, the word ‘descended’ is always used to imply movement), I thought it was the right time to research the knowledge the average Mumbaikar has about Western classical music. I started by asking people a simple question, “What do you know about Placido Domingo?”

I got many sets of answers. Forty seven per cent of the respondents said it was a country located a little to the left of Latvia (this, of course, is untrue and a first-of-its-kind response to the name, for Placido may have been mistaken for many things in his lifetime including a town twice, but never for a whole country). Thirty four per cent said it was a new kind of doughnut made with honey jam as well as sugar. Another 14 per cent said it was a Gregonan chant and nine percent said he was actor Dino Morea’s uncle. At least one respondent said Placido was a girl he once spent a carnal knowledge-filled weekend with in Budapest. Finally, I did find about 5,000 people who did know that Placido Domingo was the greatest singer alive and not surprising all of those 5,000 made their way to the Cricket Club of India lawns to hear him sing. 

After spending one hour standing in a queue that began in the middle of the Arabian Sea, we bumped, pushed, shoved and stumped (70-year-olds tripping up 85-year-olds, no quarter asked or given), until finally we found our way to the lawns, where for Rs 4000 you could see Placido Domingo, the exact size of a mosquito, standing next to a slightly smaller mosquito, Zubin Mehta, and with a whole bunch of crazy crawlies seated around them. We found out later that most of them were members of the Israeli Symphony, though as the night wore on, a few who were tiring were replaced by some actual mosquitoes. We were visually handicapped, but the audio more than made up for that, as powerful voices, never before seen on insects, filled up the CCI. I, of course, found out later, that this was due to my wife and mother arguing over a seat. We enjoyed the Domingo experience — a small shower caused some of the more concerned members of the audience to dress up in plastic bags. There, we were a bunch of human condoms, watching insects with disproportionate voices but this is not the ironic part.

You see, the next day, I was at another concert of… err... Himesh Reshammiya.