by Marilyn De Leon
October 5, 2001 was probably one of the best days of my life. After being a fan of Aishwarya Rai for 2 years, I was finally on my way to see her live on stage. I never imagined she would come to Orlando, FL of all places, but shockingly the Craze tour had a stop here. I bought the tickets about a month in advance and made sure I had front row seats. Finally, it was THE night and I was driving to the concert venue listening to the Taal soundtrack so that I could get more hyped. I went with my ex-boyfriend Javid, an old punjabi friend Ananya and her brother J, and Javid's mom and sister. The show was supposed to start at 8 pm but as all shows go, it ended up starting around 8:45 pm.
The curtains went up, the host came out, and the first performance was by Anil Kapoor. He performed some songs from his older movies, including "Taal." It was pretty good and the crowd already seemed hyped. At one point a girl came out on stage to dance with him to one of the Taal songs, and I almost died thinking it was Ash, but it wasn't so I was to hold my breath for a bit longer. Anil's performance ended and the host came back out to the stage, and she secretly began to introduce the next performance. My heart began to beat faster and faster, and I was sure this was it. I was finally going to see my Aish face to face.
As I expected, she announced her beautiful name...Aishwarya Rai. I think my heart dropped when she said that, then suddenly...I was HYPER!!!! I tried to contain myself because I didn't want my ex to yell at me, but I couldn’t hold it any longer. I stood up, clapped my hands together like I never did before, and screamed at the top of my lungs, about as loud as I screamed at the Spice Girls show (believe me that is LOUD!) and then...I saw her!!!!! She looked like an angel that had just come down from heaven as she was dancing to the Mohabbatein theme. She had some background dancers with her, but of course all eyes were on her. I think everyone else in the auditorium was looking forward to her performance more than anyone else in the show.
She performed to a few more of her movie songs including songs from "Taal" and then at the end of that part of her performance she had a huge stack of small fluffy pillows, in the shape of hearts and flowers, each and every one autographed by her, and even better, right before she threw them out into the audience, she kissed each and every one of them. I was set to catch one, no matter what!!! Then at one point she stared at me straight in the eyes, I almost fainted, and I am more than sure that she threw one in the shape of a heart to me!!!! Of course with my luck, there was a 5 year old boy sitting next to me and just as I was about to catch it, he jumped in front of me and took it for himself. I wanted to choke the boy, possibly kidnap him until he decided to give me the pillow, but my friend Ananya stopped me because I was the only non-Indian there, and I didn't want to die that night either. The boy put the pillow underneath his seat, as if it were some piece of trash, and various times I tried to slide it towards my seat with my foot, but his father kept giving me evil looks, as if he knew what I was up to. I got scared and eventually gave up and just paid attention to the show.
The host was up on stage talking her junk, and then some Indian male playback singer performed to a couple of movie songs. After his performance was through, the host came back out and introduced Preity Zinta. If I remember correctly she first performed some songs from her older movies, sort of like a medley of them all together. At the end Preity did like Aish and decided to give away some gifts to the audience as well. Although I was a million times more excited and looking forward to getting something from Aish, I thought to myself, “Preity is wonderful also, so it's worth a try.” There I was yet again trying to be a genius and catch her gifts. This time they were stuffed animals, teddy bears, cows, and bunnies. Shockingly I was lucky, and I caught one of the bunnies. I was soooooooooooo happy that I finally had a souvenir from the show to take home with me, free of charge. It was great!!! I still have it, it's this really cute purple bunny, I named it Preity, so I guess you can refer to "it" as "she". I think it slept on my bed with me for a few weeks after the show. Once the Preity/Aamir performance was through the host came out yet again. This time, she introduced the entire Lagaan team, including Aamir and Gracy and I must say it was a beautiful performance. I felt like I was inside the movie. It was just really really nice and enjoyable.
During one of the songs, Aish came out, looking stunning as usual, wearing this nice old fashioned looking red dress and holding an umbrella. Of course that was not surprising, because honestly Aish is a million times more beautiful in person than she is on screen. I know it sounds wild, but it's true. After the Lagaan performance was through everyone was allowed to take a 10 minute break for snacks, bathroom, whatever it was we needed. I left with Ananya and Javid's mom and sister to go to the bathroom, and on my way out to the halls I see the little boy again, my rival....the little brat!!! I gave him a really mean look and walked away as Ananya was literally dragging me by my arms. "Leave the poor kid alone, Marilyn!" she said. She didn't understand my pain. Aish had thrown that out to ME and that little brat stole it...it was just horrible!!!
After the break was through the curtains went up yet again, and this time there was no host. The lights got dim, and everyone looked around wondering what was going on. Suddenly from the entrance doors in the back, Anil Kapoor was out yet again doing another performance. He walked through the middle aisle of the auditorium, and danced to some songs from some more of his older movies. Then he began to dance to the songs from "Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai" so of course I expected Aish to come back out any minute now. Sure enough, she did, and they performed to the songs from the movie which was beautiful. Aish looked stunning, I especially loved that one outfit because it was Indian, but modern at the same time, very nice.
After their performance was done, Aamir came back out. This time he came out with Preity and they danced to some songs from "Dil Chata Hai" which was really cute. They're both so funny and entertaining, it was actually fun. I remember they chose a couple from the audience to go on stage and join them, it was soooooo cute.
After that was done things got a little bit wilder and more hyper as I like to say. Aamir, Preity, and Aish all joined each other on stage. They were being a bit silly for about 10 minutes, laughing and cracking jokes on Aamir, Preity being wild and bad as usual. They did the final performances which were awesome. It was a bit strange for me as I’d never seen the three of them in a film together, but I managed to enjoy it anyways. We all did.
It was surely and unforgettable night, and one of the best shows I’ve ever been to. It was very different from other shows, and the fact that I got to see Aish keeps me with a huge grin on my face to this day. If I could go back to that night I definitely would, just to see Aish that close to me again. Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures because no cameras were allowed in the auditorium, since the show took place just weeks after 9/11, but the show still ended up being a success and I think everyone present that night had a wonderful time. I'll never be able to forget that show...NEVER!!! The show ended at around 2 am, which was shocking because the time flew by so fast for me. I guess I was having WAY too much fun! And not to mention, one can never get enough of Aish!
