The first step was to shortlist 12 poems wherein we included all the moods and colours of the book. Next, we determine the order of the poems so we are able to build up climax in our presentation. By this time, both the dance and the music departments were getting impatient to start their work and requested me to send a rough recording of the 12 poems in the correct order. I did that, now all I had to do was to weave the poems seamlessly and decorate it with a head and tail.
I decided to include two languages, Hindi and English and two voices, male and female in the narrative. My colleague at Big FM RJ Dilip recorded the Hindi portion and I recorded the English poems and the script was ready. Narayan sir immediately embarked on his compositions and Uma and Vaidehi got cracking with the dancers. The rehearsals had started but everyone needed to know their pauses and that could only be evident after the final recording of the music and jattis were done!
A number of dancers and a number of musicians had to work together before the mixed recording was finalized but there was another problem. All of them felt my rendition of poems was too fast and had to be done again. So, I had to re-record all the 12 poems with an eight-beat pause to get the right effect and I’m still amazed how I got it right!