Actor-lyricist-singer Piyush Mishra’s musical band Ballimaaraan kicked off this year’s concert tour, Aarambh 2023, with an electric performance at Nexus Elante in Chandigarh on Saturday.
The audience had a unique experience of live interactions in between songs where Mishra shared nuggets of wisdom and talked about the ‘dichotomy of Mumbai’, fame, the golden period of the ’70s, fear of India becoming Hamlet’s Denmark, his struggles with alcohol, and much more.
On success, the Gangs of Wasseypur actor-singer said, “You get success only if you work for it. I started getting work quite late in life, so people often ask, ‘Why didn’t you quit?’ Par main karmheenta ki zindagi nahin jeena chahta tha (I didn’t want to lead a life of inactivity). Because I believe if you’re inactive, you’re as good as dead. I just wanted to work, no matter the result.”
“And, by the time I got stardom, if we can even call it that, I was married and my kids were all grown up so I didn’t know how to enjoy it. Mujhe aiyaashi ka waqt hi nahin mila,” he added.
To the audience’s chants of ‘Love you, Piyush ji’, his tongue-in-cheek response was ‘Arre! Mere ghar pe biwi hain, yaar’.
The band performed their hit songs, including Aarambh Hai Prachand, Ghar, Ik Bagal Mein Chand Hoga, Husna and Uth Ja Bhaau at the concert, leaving the audience asking for more.
“This was our first time performing in Chandigarh and we couldn’t have asked for a better audience,” said Mishra, whose band included city lad Nishant Agarwal on guitar, Jayant Patnaik on percussion, Shovon Mukherjee as the bass guitarist and Rahul Gandhi as backing vocals.
Towards the end of the show, Nishant revealed that it was in Chandigarh that the idea of forming the band was conceived. “We met at a literary festival and I told him that I’m a fan. We got to talking music, self-doubt, and more; and eventually came up with the idea of Ballimaaraan — a musical homage to the doyen of Urdu poetry, Mirza Ghalib,” he shared.
