The goodness of the weekend started out with a random Saturday afternoon conversation about music with my sister-in-law. In the course of that conversation, which barely lasted an hour, I was already introduced to THREE new artists that I cannot wait to hear more of. When that conversation was over, it was time for me to put on a smile and my best “Hello, how are you today?” performance to do my job.
Now through my job, especially over the weekends, I meet a variety of people from all walks of life. I’ve met National award winning artists that are more humble than you would expect, I’ve met page 3 socialites to whom I have nothing to say except a courteous hello, and I’ve even met a wonderfully free spirited couple with whom I talked at length about morality and what it entails. But nothing, NOTHING could prepare me for Saturday evening.
I am not a fan of that genre of music that people call psy. Or trance. Or whatever they call it. I have no knowledge about it. Zilch. Nada. I don’t even know if psy and trance is the same thing. It honestly all sounds the same to me. But, I have friends who absolutely adore that genre – worship it even. Abu, being possibly the biggest fan I know. Abu celebrated his 21st birthday two weeks ago, and during discussions with the others about what to get him, we had vaguely mentioned “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could get Ma Faiza to autograph something for him?” and that was the end of that idea. M did try and take it one step ahead by writing to her, but that didn’t work out and THAT was definitely the end of that idea.
But then, fate and destiny are funny things. They work in mysterious ways and do mysterious things. You know what Paulo Coelho said? “When you want something, the whole Universe conspires to help you realise your desire.” Whether it was our desire of gifting a Ma Faiza something or Abu’s desire of owning a Ma Faiza something, no one knows. But either way, Saturday evening (and the rest of the weekend) the Universe conspired to help us realize our desire.
She walked in to my office, as part of the guest list for the exhibition we were holding in there, nonchalantly. And I would never have approached her, if it hadn’t been for Abu. I had nothing in common with her, nothing to say to her about her music, nothing to say about anything that made her famous, because quite honestly, I only know who she is because of my friends. But seeing her walking in through the doors, so soon after we had discussed the coolness of the possibility of getting her to autograph something, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I KNEW I HAD TO GET SOMETHING OF HERS FOR ABU. I had NOTHING on me, except tissue paper and my office notepad – I had nothing that even remotely suggested music, for her to sign on. But it didn’t matter. Either way, I knew I wasn’t letting her walk out of there without her autograph. It meant too much to Abu, even though he wouldn’t ever find out about her presence there if I didn’t tell him.
But that would be cruel, and I would never do that. So I called M and the giggling idiot and told them about her being there. M immediately told the pink boy to come over to my office with a blank CD and a permanent marker.
In the meantime: I spoke to her, told her all about exactly how big a fan of hers Abu is and asked her if she would PLEASE sign something for him. And she was superbly gracious about it. Not only was she superbly gracious about it, she went a step ahead! She told me to tell the pink boy to relax and gave me her personal contact details and said she would go home that evening and burn him her music, autograph the CD and I could come and pick it up the next day. GOD BLESS HER! I thought I was going to collapse out of sheer joy. It wasn’t because I was in the presence of a celebrity, it wasn’t because I was conscious of myself – it was because I could imagine Abu’s face when we’d hand it over to him.
That wasn’t the end of destiny’s role in the whole thing. As I was talking to her, she revealed that she was in the city for only a day and come Monday morning she was off for a month long work trip to somewhere in Europe. It was destiny that we met at just the right time, on Saturday – when she had enough time before leaving to burn the CD and do all that she did. So I merrily left her presence, with a promise of a phone call by noon the next day. And the hope that I could bring Abu with me to pick up the CD, so he could meet her himself!
Sunday morning: I waited, and I waited. She hadn’t called by 12:30pm! But around quarter to one, my phone rang with her calling to say the CD was ready and I could pick them up whenever I wanted, but that she wouldn’t be able to meet him because she had a whole bunch of things to do before she left the next day. That dampened our spirits a little bit, but it was still alright! M, the giggling idiot and I decided to go pick up the CD after lunch, because it didn’t matter what time we went, since we weren’t meeting her after all.
Again, not the end of destiny’s role. So sneaky, I must say. We went to a restaurant we’ve been meaning to try out for a while, but they had a one hour waiting for a table. So we figured we’d con Abu into coming with us to pick up the CD. God bless Blue Lagoon for that one hour waiting! If it hadn’t had that waiting, we’d never have gone to Ma Faiza’s house to pick up the CD at the time that we did. And we’d never have caught her, on her way out.
Destiny man, it’s all destiny. He met her, he spoke to her, and he accepted the autographed CDs (she made him TWO!) with trembling hands – all with the most incredulous look on his face. I don’t think it struck him that he’d actually met her until we’d left her place. And she was just really sweet! I really cannot describe her in any other way. Everything about her and the way she spoke and what she did for Abu was sweet. I may not be a fan of her music, but of her I am definitely a fan.
And as someone who orchestrated this meeting, I feel absolutely ecstatic! Just seeing the look on Abu’s face during and after the meeting, made my day. My heart did some sort of warm melting thing, just to have him smiling like that. It was awesome! And it didn’t cost us a single thing, but it was worth SO much! All in less than a day.
YAY. All weekends should be as awesome and serendipitous as this one! Or maybe not. That would probably take away the charm of having a one-off awesome and serendipitous weekend!
1 comment:
Every word came from within. Love it and love you :) <3
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