Zangooraaaaaah! WHAT...A...SHOW!

I saw sign boards of ‘Kingdom of Dreams’ a few months ago on the roads and wondered what it was! As always, I thought it was just a hype for some ordinary set-up. I never bothered to know what it was. When I joined Google, I heard my colleague discuss about the same while discussing an offsite visit. I heard such discussions a couple of more times over the breakfast and lunch too and now I was inquisitive to know what this ‘Kingdom of Dreams’ was. I asked this colleague of mine and she didn’t seem to be so excited about the entire experience she had over there, and the description of the place didn’t sensitize me much too for a visit to the place.

It so happened one day that we passed by the place, and saw this HUGE structure towards our left on our way. We discussed among ourselves what it was, within no time, our quest had its own answer - it was ‘Kingdom of Dreams’. That was it, our curiosity of what it was and what would be there inside that HUGE structure grew manifold. Guess what! The next day my friend called up and said his company was organizing a visit to the ‘Kingdom of Dreams’ and he invited us for that. We readily agreed since we were longing to go and see the place by now! Well, to be very frank, we enjoyed the visit because of the entertainment activities that my friend’s company organized, but were not so impressed by the place as such, though we appreciated the idea and more than that, the effort that went into making such a place. While just roaming around the campus, we saw another unit which was looking like some theatre inside or so. When asked, the security guards said, ‘it is a theatre and there is a live play which is shown everyday’. Oh! That was totally not interesting enough for us, especially when the guards told us that the ticket amounts range between Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 6,000.

Thanks to this company that I work with, we had the holiday party organized to this place, which included the visit to the eating joints called Culture Gully (the place where my friend’s office visit was organized), and this theatre play also - it is called ‘Zangoora!’.

Okay, it took a while after we got seated in the gallery in the auditorium, exclusively booked for our company. I didn’t have many expectations about this play. As I heard all over, it was called the India’s biggest bollywood musical. I thought it would be boring, and something like a bollywood movie story and so on. It started finally, and the first instance of the music along with the scene with all the decor and the props that came up in the first glance, were TRULY AMAZING! I had not seen such a ‘live’ animation ever! The story was of course bollywood and not much we could not predict. But the way it was done was just OUTSTANDING! The timing of each of the settings, the music and the songs, the old songs played were significantly high as a % of the songs played which reminds me that Old is Gold indeed! Songs like ‘mehbooba’ (Sholay, 1975), ‘laila main laila’ (Qurbaani, 1980), ‘chura liya hai tumne jo dil ko’ (Yaadon ki Baarat, 1973), and much more. The live dance which had unbelievable immense energy, the number of times and scenes changed and the timing with which the sets changed, was amazing! The animations, the synchronization of the live acts with the pictures and the effects that were created hence, were extremely spectacular!!! It had many things without which the play could have been done. Putting unusual genuine perfect efforts to do things without which the task can be done, I understand, is what is called strategy and this is what makes the task “extra”ordinary and shows a long term impact, normally not immediate, I believe wholeheartedly. Acting in movies which are shot & edited, having a lot of takes and re-takes is quite easy. Doing such an act which is an entire movie, live on the stage, with no editing, no retakes, with amazing perfection in all respects, definitely needs immense preparation & Zangoora is a collection of all this.

Well, there was no advertising about the actors, and the act too. But there are topshots involved, including some renowned music directors, singers, some good actors and so on. I would leave it to you to find out the details.

Really, A MUST WATCH SHOW!!!