Under the Banyan Tree: Fireflies

It's easy to become jaded and complacent living in New York City. You can find anything and everything there, right? Well you'll never have an experience like this one in NYC and for me this was a once-in-a-lifetime, I-can't-believe-how-lucky-I-am-to-witness-this event!

One of my colleagues very generously invited me to a concert with him and a few of his friends. It was held at an ashram called Fireflies about 1 hour outside of Bangalore, that describes itself as an inclusive, secular, guru-less ashram. The program was scheduled to go from 6 PM to 6 AM, with each musical group playing 3 or 4 songs and then making way for the next group. Many different kinds of music were represented by the bands that played. I stayed until 11, as I had a yoga class at 7 AM the next morning.

The setting for the concert was in a large amphitheater comprised of granite steps that lead down to a Banyan tree at the bottom and center. The tree's branched fanned out over the amphitheater sprinkled the audience with cooling sap all evening.

This first group I saw, Brahmastra, sang mainly devotional songs, and praised both Jesus and Krishna. One constant throughout the night was that lyrics were almost always in Hindi, but thank-yous and explanations were always in English.



The second group was Bhatktiyana, who performed classical Indian music:



The 3rd group was HFT, a jazz fusion group:



I have 2 videos for Esperanto because I liked them so much. Their aim was to incorporate musical styles from all over the world. One of the musicians even played a didgeridoo! Unfortunately, I didn't get a clip of that, but I did get a clip of this Indian man playing what is basically an Irish jig.



The 2nd video for Esperanto:



The last group that I got to see played Sufi music. The leader of the group is Shabnam Virmani, a documentary film maker turned musician. She is the director of the Kabir Project, which explores the meaning of the Sufi poet Kabir's work through different artistic media, including music. Her group had set several poems by Kabir to music. This was probably my favorite, and my friend who invited me said this was one of the best examples of this kind of music (which is from Delhi, where he's from) that he's heard in about 20 years.



Ms. Virmani explained the poems before she sang them. My favorite story was one about a brave little parrot. One day there was a fire in a forest and all the animals began to run away, but a little parrot stayed perched in a tree. The animals said to him, "Why don't you fly away? You'll die in that tree!" But the little parrot said, "When I was a young bird I played in this tree's branches. Here is where I learned how to fly. I have lived my whole life with this tree and I will not leave it now." As the fire drew nearer it began to burn his tree and the parrot flew away. He flew as fast as he could towards a lake, dove in, flew back to his tree, flapped his wings and sprinkled 2 or 3 drops of water down on the flaming branches. Again he dove into the lake and again he sprinkled a few drops of water onto his tree. After some time he became black with soot and struggled to continue his flights. Then, God noticed this brave little parrot and his tenderness for his home, and sent a rain storm to extinguish the fire. I can't quite remember, but I don't think that either of the videos I have for her are recordings of that story.



My ticket cost 350 rupees, or about $6.