Sivamani's beats mesmerize city

NEW DELHI: The Capital came alive with the sounds of music on Tuesday evening. Delhiites stood patiently in long queues and waited for hours outside Siri Fort Auditorium to watch and hear ace percussionist Sivamani and mandolin maestro U Shrinivas perform in the city.
The third day of the Culture Curry at the Times Delhi Festival saw people from all walks of life and age groups come together to imbibe the spirit of the moment.Though the performance started 40 minutes late, the moment Sivamani stepped onto the stage and bowed before his adoring audience, all was forgotten.
The sound of Sivamani's drums combined with Shrinivas' mandolin and the keyboards, created a trance-like atmosphere. The audience cheered and applauded, demanding more every time a piece ended. The fast-paced rhythm had the audience nodding its head and tapping its feet in unison with the artist's beats. It seemed that Sivamani and Shrinivas knew exactly what the audience wanted to hear.
Fashion designer Shobhit Ahuja, who was there with his three friends, had waited for almost three hours outside the auditorium to get the first seats once the gates opened. "It was a real treat to see Sivamani perform live and we didn't want to miss it for anything. The performance was worth the wait,'' he said.
The auditorium was so packed that people were sitting on the steps and aisle because there was no more seating left. For an hour after the show started, more and more people kept pouring in. "We didn't find any empty seats so we sat on the steps near the front row. The performance was so captivating that we didn't mind any kind of inconvenience,'' said Usha Khanna, who came all the way from Gurgaon with her husband to see the show.