‘We can do dubbing, sing jingles for ads’

Applause is especially important for the visually impaired artiste as that is the only way that the performer knows the audience is enjoying itself There was plenty of that on Sunday evening as blind singers regaled a compact crowd at the P L Deshpande miniauditorium within the Ravindra Natya Mandir complex in Prabhadevi Artistes from the Soor Drushti organisation performed Bollywood hits and a few other popular numbersSoor Drushti President Kaustubh Ghaisas stated ldquoI started Soor Drushti a nongovernmental organisation NGO just before the COVID19 pandemic I teach music to the visually challenged These persons have a limited livelihood source so I train them and really want to see that their skills are recognizedrdquoVitamin SeeThere were nine artistes Out of these seven were blind and two were physically challenged Three blind artistes were on the keyboard They sang solo belting out golden oldies like lsquoBabuji dheere chalnarsquo where the audience cheered As the soulful more contemporary ldquoAapki madhosh nazarersquo garnered foot taps and wah wahs we knew we were on to a good thing The number lsquojaane man jaane man tere do nayanhelliprdquo actually had the audience singing in unison too Post the programme a number of people actually climbed on to the dais as the group was wrapping up and musical instruments were being packed away to congratulate the troupe for a zingy SundayAlso Read Hope plans to reduce weight of school bags workAudio ahoyDebutant singer Samiksha Patil who is blind is pursuing an MBA at a Bandra College She said as the event concluded and she was still on stage accepting congratulations ldquoThis was my first live stage performance It may not have been evident but I was battling stage fear initially We may be unable to see the audience but we certainly know that there are people we do feel their presencerdquoThe young woman when asked about life outside the stage negotiating the city as a visuallyimpaired person said ldquothings are improving but we need to up the ante on audio announcements when it comes to infrastructure More audio books will be helpful too I hope we have some more avenues for our livelihoodrdquo The avenue bit may be closer than Patil imagined There was a representative of a top corporate house on stage post event The company gives opportunities to the differentlyabled and the representative was just about to speak to this MBA studentAvenues pleaseThe lsquoGujjubhairsquo of the group as he called himself who had also belted out a number in Gujarati Ashok Parmar a Borivli resident works as a singerartiste in a Matheran resort He said ldquoAwareness is increasing Yet we have had a tough time because of Coronavirus where all performers were adversely impacted Of course we were hurt most of all as the window for opportunity is thinner for us I think the governmententertainment industry authorities must impose some kind of restrictions on DJs At least some regulations so that we artistes have more chancesrdquoAnchor Buddhagosh Kasare who handled the programme with deft maturity and humour said ldquoEven though this is a lsquoliversquo performance we cannot see the facial expressions of the audience Yet we can gauge from the applause that it was from the heart and we have touched a chordrdquo Kasareadded ldquoWe hope to get some opportunities for dubbing I do not think many persons are aware that we can do dubbing We can sing advertisement jingles too if given the chancerdquo Artiste Siddhesh Patil added idealistically ldquoAn artiste lives not just on food in his belly but audience appreciation Seeing the latter today my stomach is fullrdquo Ghaisas signed off ldquono more sympathy only opportunity we are working towards that Even when there are programmes with differentlyabled persons you may have a troupe of sighted persons and one blind person in that group With this I wanted to prove you can have an entire troupe that is differentlyabled and they can get an audience to its feet asking for an encore like they did hererdquo