I came face to face with the phenomenon called One Direction when my tween daughter was singing ‘What makes you beautiful’ day in, day out. That was 4 years ago. Since then, these lads from the backstreet of ordinary have only grown to be the next big thing! A rags-to-riches story that could well be crafted from the finest dreams of determination, grit, talent and luck. Frankly, boy bands take me to the 90s where it was fashionable for a new group to come in with every other MTV telecast. A couple of chart busters later, they’d each go solo. Worse, they’d stop altogether. Remember Take That, Boyz II Men, Backstreet Boys, N Sync, Westlife and Bed and Breakfast? Yup, you’d need to Google to know what they are up to now. So, coming back to 1D as their fans call them, I really thought they’d be over and done with sooner or later.
This is Us – the 3D concert film was the time when I realized that these boys were here to stay. Yes, the auditorium was filled with teens, mostly girls who screamed every time a Directioner came on-screen. They had conquered the globe without having visited most of the places listed as countries. Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson had managed the impossible. They had the world headed in ONE DIRECTION – theirs.
So, it was a given that the daughter and her besties wanted to see the new concert movie that was having a global release for just this weekend. 11-12 October. The wonderful mother that I am, I tried to book the tickets online. There was an error and the next thing I knew 4 rows were unavailable already. I hit panic button. It is for such times that the husband comes valiantly riding on a white horse. (Read better broadband). The seats were soon sold out, but four glorious tickets were ours. K 1,2,3,4 @PVR Juhu, 5.30 pm Saturday, 11th October was a date. However nothing would have prepared me for what followed.
It was deja vu, really. An auditorium full of teens and tweens, girls mostly, and a few brave lads who proved to be worthy competition. No vacant seats were in sight. I could feel all eyes glued to the screen, in keen anticipation. And all at once the screen lit up and the screams got louder. Only to subside as an aging hero wished us Happy New Year. A collective gasp of blasphemy was heard. But they waited, patiently, and they were rewarded. And so were my eardrums! If I tell you, I heard nothing of the boys singing, I would not be lying. In between shouts and sobs of ‘I love you’, the atmosphere had turned electric. Everyone knew all the notes, and the lyrics by heart. A single strum of the guitar and they knew which song was next. And then there came a time when they were off their seats, clapping animatedly till one firecracker decided she wanted to dance. Well, the whole gang was down and it was Fandom at its best. All of them were only having fun, pure, unadulterated fun. And when they were asked to return to their seats they did, without protest. But the enthusiasm was anything but confined to that little space. They rocked the auditorium and how. It was as though the Indian 1D fans were all out to prove, they were the best! We adults could learn a thing or two from these youngsters., I tell you.
If you missed the movie this weekend, the DVDs will be out soon. Get it. It is a fun watch where the boys candidly discuss what it means to be One direction. Right from how giving a bestman’s speech is a huge thing for so many, while they talk to their gargantuan live audiences, worldwide. And so they like to make it conversational and introduce each other, instead. Like how four out of five band members need their phones with them always. The fifth went for WiFi. 😀 Then there was this bit about how they probably were the worst celebrities who went to red carpet events and stuffed their faces, rather than look all pretty and elegant. I couldn’t help but laugh at this one. It brought to the fore that they were after all, just boys with their likes, dislikes and quirks. Be it sleeping on the bus or travelling with a backpack, taking a toilet break between a performance or doing things that made their families proud, they struck all the right chords.
And now I must stop, and let you watch this video which probably does not do much justice to the ID mania. If this does not get the boys to visit this part of town, I don’t know what will. It was taken on the insistence of a soon to be thirteen year old and her friends. And in all this din, what they really want to say is, ONE DIRECTION, you haven’t visited the world if you haven’t visited India. We heart you, yes mommy included.
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