48 – Dancer Profile: Prabh Saini
Sup y’all, on this episode of The Bhangra Podcast we’re interviewing the captain and founder of Shaan Punjab Dee (SPD), Prabh Saini.
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Transcript
Sorry, I'm just picturing this. Right. I'm picturing a horse on stage. I'm telling what I'm looking at. I'm thinking of a horse right now. Going crazy. Yeah.
Prabh Saini:Okay. All right. So the mic is on, on stage, you know, everyone's like SPD, SPD and the court. I was like, yeah, man, this is for me. And like the court, I was crazy, you know, like this podcast
Sahab Grover:hi everyone. My name is Sahab Grover. Today. We have a special one-on-one interview with none other than Bob Sani. Oh, Sean Punjab for listeners who are new to pump it up or unaware of the Bhangra community. But I was captain of shop and job D otherwise known as, as PD upon our team and Academy based out of Brampton, Ontario, Canada SPD is widely considered one of the most popular and successful teams in the world. And in today's interview, you're going to hear directly from prob on the history of the team and what the trials and tribulations of success in the feminist community look like now to understand the history of SPD. We started outside the prominent community and went straight to the Sani home. So probably I'm kind of going to start talking a little bit more about not the bungalow side of everything, but more you as a person. So we all know that you jug meet our captain, shop Punjab be together, but I want to know more about your family. So for example, what do your parents do for work? Kind of when did they immigrate to the West? And I kind of remember your dad actually hung it on the sixth 2016. I remember your dad was singing there. I think if I remember correctly. So tell me more about like, what, what's your family life like?
Prabh Saini:Um, you said, um, what did they do for work? So my dad is driving a truck. Um, my mom was a lecturer in India. And then when she came here right now, she's working as a financial advisor. And, um, you know how, um, even though I've told my parents to retire, but they still want to work, especially my mom, I'm like the mom. I'm like, Hey mom, you can just sit at home. And, you know, um, just, just, just, uh, Simon gotta go to, you know, just love us instead of like, you know, she, she, she picks up shifts from Amazon to, um, some security shifts here and there. And then also look like the financial side of it. Um, She wants to work. She's very active. She's a yoga teacher as well. So she always wants to stay very active. And I guess that is where I always tell my team. I'm like, Hey, um, you know, I, my mom, didn't just tell me to do this, tell me to do that. And then I just listened to her. She was there to set an example for me. And I had to, like, I had a very good example in front of me. And, uh, that is why I am the way I am. I mean, I, I work as well, six days in a week. Um, and my team is like, how do you do this? And I'm like, this is exactly how I do this. I have a, I have a role model that I can look up to almost every day. And, uh, that's, that's how it impacts my life. Um, and yeah. And then on the other side to that as a truck driver, so he's also a very hard working, working person, so yeah, I
Sahab Grover:mean, so that hustling lifestyle really comes from your parents. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, so you said you, you're also working six days a week. What do you do for work?
Prabh Saini:Um, I started working with, um, the investigators group in corporate. Uh, there are private company in Toronto. Um, I started working there as a security guard, um, from security guard, went to a loss prevention officer and then became an investigator. And now I worked through as an investigator,
Sahab Grover:so. Awesome. That's awesome. Um, so you okay. You're working six days a week. Yeah. Now what influence has this all had on your career? I mean, like you said, you're doing so much. So how has, how has this work life influenced your prominent career?
Prabh Saini:I wish I could put more time towards filling it up and, um, I wish I could put more time towards singing, but it is what it is. You have bills to pay, you have insurances to pay for, you have mortgages to take care of. Um, so yeah, I guess, um, Well work is work and but I, I really, um, when it comes to bungalow, I feel like I have an obsession, not just passion. Um, so I I've I've scheduled my work according, according to So I
Sahab Grover:don't know if that makes sense. It makes to me, it actually makes complete sense. I know.
Prabh Saini:Exactly. Yeah. So like a Saturday, Sunday would be 10 to six. I mean, I, I told my workplace I'm like, I can not work after six. So give me a shift. That's like ending before six or five. So they would always make sure that I'm like done work at six or after like six I'll be
Sahab Grover:available. That's awesome. That's really awesome. You're talking about, um, you mentioned, um, Jagmeet their meet, right? Um, you're both of you guys are phenomenal dancers, right? Um, I want to talk more about, you know, I think. Being brothers, you know, in a circuit being brothers on a team is very important and it's probably had a great influence on you. So tell me more about that relationship that you had between you two that's really helped foster the environment that John Punjab is or has done.
Prabh Saini:Um, wow. That's a very good question. Um, so the first competition that we ever went to was not stip and Debbie, um, it was a local competition. It took place in a banquet hall meet was not a part of it. And when I was performing on stage meets was on the side and the left side, I still remember he was, he was sitting with mom and he was just jumping up and down and he was supporting us like no tomorrow. And to have that kind of support, it meant a lot to me on stage, we did, we did place the first at the competition. We had some local teams compete there. Uh, but that was our first competition as well. So we were looking forward to more competitions and the next competition, one of my teammates, he's like, you know what? Let's let's. Have meat to cover a spot and he's going to perform as well. And I'm like, no, he's too young yet. You know where it probably, this is probably not the right time. But then we brought him in, he covered a spot. He started dancing, started practicing. And then I think it only took me a day or two, um, to make up my mind. I mean, I made up my mind after looking at them for a day or two, I'm going to be training him. I'm going to be spending time on him. And then it started from there and everything after that, I mean, even before that too, it was always, it was always amazing. I mean, we have a difference of seven years. Um, he would always call me buddy, so right. You would always call me foggy. And that's why, I mean, everyone else in the team as well, they call me buggy as well. Right. Um, and I guess that respect I started from right there, they had, they had meat to look up to and then meat meats, first competition, actually the first competition that meat performed, that was that going up the falls. And that's where he got the best answer award. Okay. And after that it just started. I mean, I knew it that he's going to be my Jodie very soon. And, um, yeah. I mean, our relationship has always gotten better after that. I mean, it gives me a competition type of, you know, that.
Sahab Grover:Yeah. So, I mean, it's like, it's always good to have that Jordy where you're like, you're trying to, like,
Prabh Saini:just the team and also cover the difference of seven years with my brother with my Jody is like, uh,
Sahab Grover:yeah, the first competition that SPD competed at outside of Canada was big Apple 2014, big Apple. Palmetto was a part of a competition hosted in Queens, New York. It hasn't been held since 2016. I had the pleasure of being at that competition, which I'm Punjab D in 2014. And if you were there, you would not recognize them as SPD. We know today. And the preparation of that cop explains why you wouldn't recognize them. What was that? A comp prep? Like, can you talk about that comp experience?
Prabh Saini:I can't prep. Okay. So we started practicing for big Apple, with 12 guys from 12, we went to 10 from 10, we went to eight and then from eight, we finally went to six. And that same night when we went to six, when two guys said that we're not coming, I went to the Academy and then I had Saje kahuna there, the red, dirty dancer from a big Apple, right beside Manny. Um, he was crying. He had tears in his eyes. He's like, Hey man, we put our whole summer into it. And you know, now we're not going to the competition or what, because we're six now in the minimum to go to a competition is eight. I'm like, Hey guys, don't worry about it. Like, we'll go, you know, um, just give me some time. And then there was me and my brother, right. It was his first legitimate competition right after, um, founded at the falls. And, um, I was like, okay, you know what, meet? Um, we'll go for it. You know, we'll go for it. I'll make some arrangements. So these guys that I started calling and, you know, they used to help me out with gigs and all that. Two of them came in and then we were back to eight and we only had, I don't know, I think we had about nine days before the competition. Right. And we're like, well, guys, we'll make it happen. Like we're legit legitimate. We had one week, I would say one week, not even like nine days. So we had one week and then I'm like, okay guys, we have to like, take the set from a 10 men or 11 men to like eight men. Right. So change formations and all that. So it started from there. And then the coach was there too. And, uh, we ended up going to the competition with eight APEC. So we just wanted to go to that competition and see how it feels to go to a competition like that. Right. And just
Sahab Grover:try it out. And then when you got that feeling, did it, uh, what ha what happened after big Apple? Or we talked about that there is like a kind of a show. Yeah. So
Prabh Saini:after big Apple, I mean, um, so I had competed in India and we went, we went. Two nice levels, you know, nice universities, colleges, and, you know, competed like that. What team was that in
Sahab Grover:India
Prabh Saini:as you compete? I compete. So in 2014, when I went to India, after a few years, I competed with, um, uh, shift John's team. So that's Joe deep Singh cities team, the same team that won first place. Right. I competed with those guys. I performed with those guys, I mean, against the other teams. Um, so what were we talking about again?
Sahab Grover:Yes, Apple, Apple,
Prabh Saini:we performed. And then, um, I got a lot of love apparently like that blue Jordy meet and I, we, we received a lot of love, um, especially one of your guys, um, uh, GCMS descends. Uh, we met up, we met up at the after party and it was just sitting with me. He was just like, man, you guys were, you know, you guys were good. You know, I want to see more of you guys. Like he appreciated us like anything. And with all that love, I really wanted to do big too, you know, Like, I didn't know the culture of competitions here. I didn't know it at that point. Right. We were just going, because someone was taking us there and we, we decided that as a team we'll go there and we'll experience how it feels like, and, and losing never feels good, especially when you're, you know, when you, when you, when you want to win. Right. Yeah. So, um, that's where it started from it. Yeah. And, um, right when we came back, the team, some guys from the team they're like, I mean said was the main guy at that time he was leading. Um, he's like, Hey, I would want, you know, probably to be the coach of the team, if anything, and the other guys also, um, you know, pointed it in and then they're like, Hey, if Brooke can run the team, it's, it's, it's good. We're staying. If not, then we're out. And at that point, um, the coach that was there at that point, he also said that he's like, I am not into competitions anymore. So I would like to take off. So that's when I was appointed as the coach of Sean Punjab V. And uh, I decided that every single competition that SPDs went to and they'd lost their, I'm going to make sure I go to every single of that competition and win. And go for a run. I mean, you know, and big Apple out of all the competition is the only competition that's left that we have
Sahab Grover:let's talk to the versa guys and make sure it happens again. Yep. Yeah, they gotta, they gotta run that comp. I think it's been a very long time since they ran it in quite a few years. It's been awhile. Um, yeah. Um, so what I read when I hear that story, I kind of hear a very similar story to how a lot of people get very involved in the community. They go to one competition, they maybe lose at that competition. Don't perform as they want to. And then they get like super addicted to the environment and then they just want to do they want to just keep going into it, keep going into it. Um, now, now you started having that kind of like that, Pat, you always had the passion it up, but now you have this, uh, want to bring SPD and to all these comps and when everything that they've lost in the
Prabh Saini:past. Yeah. I think more likely it was like the feelings that were connected with me, you know, like. Meat was hoping that my brother would take us to a competition. You would train us, you know, Saje was like, yes, man. I F I feel like we could do better. Right. So there were hopes, and there were dreams that were connected. And I mean, that was something that was fueling me 24 seven. Yeah. Yeah,
Sahab Grover:for sure. And so they've kind of that fuel took you into windy city, 2015. So windy city, you had, you were going up against probably, you know, some big competition from Toronto. I think the placing teams were, uh, SGP, D U a S P E and then, uh, extreme which all three or trout teams all from the same city. Um, but yeah, so windy city now, the performance is on a different level than, uh, what was happening with big Apple. It needs to even like the style of set, the choreography, everything was so different. Um, you know, in a, in a really, really a year's timeframe. So talk about that. Like, what was that key differentiator that like helped you out to have that prop in? Um, what was that comp experience in prep like? Um,
Prabh Saini:After big Apple. Um, I knew exactly what we needed to do to perform, um, on a stage and, you know, actually be, actually actually get appreciated by people. Right. And not stop the big Apple. I mean, I had experienced from before too. So I just wanted to put that in, you know, tell my guys exactly how I want to do it, you know, practice and just give it time. Anything you give time to, you could make it work like you get, you have, once you have a vision, you have to put time in it and that's, you'll get what you want from it. You know? So I started looking for guys. I made a couple of posts that, Hey, we're, we're looking for guys that made a few phone calls. I also had my guys calling people that were interested in doing bungalow, right? So we brought a bunch of people in made selections. And, um, as soon as I had the right guys to do it, I mean, SPD for, let me tell you this, as PD has been very picky, right? With people, especially when, when we, when we, when we're taking that people, when we're taking those, uh, people to competitions, Right. We're being like, we, I get very picky, like, but then the shining got started that way, you know? Um, and things like that, man, like, you know, so got so pretty much
Sahab Grover:nobody on SPD drinks. Is that what you're saying?
Prabh Saini:No, no, no. Of course. I cannot get people
Sahab Grover:to a point where I know what you're saying. It's kind of like, it's like team, it's like team image, right? Yeah. That person. Yeah. That
Prabh Saini:person prediction. Let me put it that way. Nobody that is addicted to drugs, you know, can go to competitions. And if they're going to competitions with me, they have to leave it for that point in time. Right. Not practice because I have a diet in place that you're gonna have. You're gonna be taking that you're gonna be on for those good four months, three months that we practice. Right. So a lot of guys for that reason I've appreciated me too, because I didn't always get the good apples. Um, but anyways, yeah. So we, you know, we had, I had a vision and I'm like, Hey, this is, these are the guys that I'm going to be going to the competition with. They, um, yeah, I mean, we started practicing, it took us four months and, um, vision was different from before forum was different practice. Timings sessions were different. Coach was different. You know, the team had this heat in them that I, that I didn't see before or their energy was being channelized. It was being directed into the right way. So, I mean, when did you said he was an eyeopening performance for not just you, but for other people and myself as well, you know, seeing the team perform, you can practice, practice, practice, but then when a team puts out a Dion and the way they perform on stages, it's always phenomenal. It's always a level up. Right. So when I saw them perform on stage like that, I was like, yeah, you know what, my guys will do it and they can do it. We were okay with the second place. But then right after that in a month, I mean, SUPD won first place there. Right. I went to city. Yeah. And in a month we had a competition with SUPD again. Right. And that is when we placed first with a completely different set, like in just one month we changed our whole routine, you know,
Sahab Grover:Hmm. And that's the competition that after that happened, after when DC was struck dead Punjab type of product. So I think that's the one where the video like starts just like pointing in the sky if anyone ever finds it and it goes down. Yeah. And then you see you guys on the stage. That's how I remember it. Um, and then, uh, was falls anything different about that preparation? Very similar prop. What was that false prep? Cause there, you guys, you guys also got first, I watched that one. Yeah. I watched it on live and I know that was kind of fun. That was fun. But, um,
Prabh Saini:I think the timeframe that we had in between was two months and a half. So I don't know, I'm not too sure, but two months and a half and a completely different set, again,
Sahab Grover:it be different sets, same approach, right? Yep. 2016 motor city. the competition that put SPD on the map globally. A little bit of background motor city competition is held in the Metro Detroit area. My home, it is typical of this competition to have both a life I'm going to competition and a music Fanta competition. So live is where they're dancing to a live band. The dancers are dancing to a live band and music is where they're dancing to a prerecorded mix. So SPD, after going on a streak of multiple first places at local care to competitions, and also placing second at windy city, Pramata was looking for a new challenge for whole year. They didn't compete 2015 all the way 2016 little did we know at that time, that break was a buildup to something legendary and motor city from about 2016 SPD put on performance that even had the judges giving them a standing ovation. You're like first time coach of this team, right? Yeah. And you're on a placing streak. I want to ask you this question. When you saw, when you saw the talent around your team was your first reaction. Like what's the next thing we can do? What's our next challenge? You know, when you saw him CB 2016, probably talked to Gary about it. Gary was like, you know, I'd love to have you guys, um, that prop, that was the one that really put you on the map globally. Internationally. Everyone started to recognize SPD name, uh, what was the thought process? Cause there was a big gap between, um, I'm gonna have to false and then MCB. Yeah. So what was the thought process going into those, into that whatever eight month gap I believe, or six month gap, whatever that was. What was the thought process of the team of U of a, the preparation, what was going on there? Um,
Prabh Saini:I think after pumping at the falls, um, I personally realized that I don't get over with it. So by that, I mean, You know, we, we won at windy city, even though it was with a second place, but it was still, it was still a winning thing. Right. Um, at docket. And when I won first place at bunker at the falls, we won first place. And even though we won the first place we enjoyed and I wanted to go right back into it, I wanted to go right back into competitions again. Right. Any competition that would come and that would catch my eye would want to apply there. Right. So I wasn't anywhere close to being satisfied. Right. Um, so MTV came across the lineup and, uh, we applied and the mindset to go to most people in the competition and that to compete in a live category, it was different. It was very challenging. We needed, um, a lot of funding, um, you know, to have the over, you know, and have new ideas and, and many things that went into it, like our band and all that. Right. Because for live, I, I tend to believe that if you are, your set is 50%. Right. You, your dancers are 50% and your band is 50%. It's never going to go to a point where your, where your dancers are 75%. And then the band is 25. It has to be equally strong. Right. So yeah, a lot of funding was needed and our guys decided that we're going to go there. Right. Um, take our best bet and then do whatever we can put whatever we can put on stage.
Sahab Grover:So the, you talked about, um, you started to see that, um, starting to CG work, what was his impact
Prabh Saini:mean? Yeah. Um, w Nancy was, daddy was, um, I mean, still is, is the active totally of, um, the bubble man right now. And before that he was blamed for badass mine. Right. So when we met here, he was here for like shows and all that. And I'm like, Hey, you know, I approached him like, Hey, you know, I heard you play at all. And I feel like you play it from your heart. Right. And he actually does play, play from his heart. He knows that when we called him here, you know, when he played for us, it was, it was. The energy was different. The energy was completely different in the Academy. The one thing that I couldn't control though, of a stodgy was that when he feels it, he wouldn't care about anything else about speed, about whatever it is. Right. You would just go right into it, right at the crowds, you know, like going crazy. He would also go crazy, you know, so things like that could happen. But other than that, he's an amazing totally man.
Sahab Grover:Yeah. Wait, so I think you were telling me a story where he kind of came in a little bit later on the prep for MCB. Is that true? Like he was meaning like you had a different door lead and then there was yeah.
Prabh Saini:Yes, yes, sir. Let me tell you about that one personality that I'm a fan of. So right. He's a ball player. He also plays, don't be, he's the one who played to be at MCB by the way. Right. And he's, he's the one who played through him before, when I sang for a tag. Okay. Right. So he's a tall player as well. So I called him when they came in, we need help the practices, and this is what's going on. Like I told them I never kept them in the dark. I told him on the K we would also approach Nusseibeh style and see if his visa gets approved, you know, he might come into, but he has shows and all that. So if he comes in, he's only going to come in like two weeks before the competition. Right. So that ended up happening. He came in two weeks before the competition, but I, I appreciate Roman that helped us practice before that came in. Right. So what happened during our practices? Um, hedge goonie, uh, he, he, so his job, it was in the, it was in the morning time, but then it shifted to evening time. So we couldn't practice in the evening time. So because of one guy, you know, because of one person, we switched our timings from 9:30 PM to 11:30 PM. So from that timeframe to 5:00 AM to seven, uh, 7:00 AM in the morning and trust me, the struggle was real. It would be snowing outside. It would be so cold outside and Drummond D I mean, we were going to show up, of course we're dancers. I'm, I'm mentally preparing them, physically preparing them as well, you know, but for ramen, the blocker to shop at that time, and he would be the first one to shop at the Academy. I really appreciate that guy, a huge shout out to him, man, you know? And then two weeks before the competition I'm telling him like, Hey bro, you know, the visa got approved or three weeks for the competition on the kid, the visa got approved. Oh, dad's going to be coming in. So, you know, um, could I have you played Dombey right. And the man's like, yeah, man, don't worry. You told me about it. So we were on the same page. I was a fan of that guy at that point, man.
Sahab Grover:Yeah. He was a, it's a, you need that person on your team, that person on your team as like one of those valuable assets, because they like, you know, someone puts their team first. That's a, that's a great mentality. Yes, sir. Um, now I think a little bit more about MTV, specifically the teams that you're competing against, where do I need warriors? There at FCB. I think there were supposed to be 14, but I don't, I don't think that happened, but it was, you know, FCB was our first time going live. So they were really very, very new to the whole live scene. But Johnny warriors was very experienced, right? Yeah. This is essentially nudge lead on me. Right. People who, you know, w we bring it out their entire life now, what were your expectations going to the cop, knowing you're going against such a talented
Prabh Saini:team? Um, we definitely had to practice a lot and that is what we practiced almost every day. You know, not stage one, you, of course your name was out there. Right. And for us to compete against them. And just like you said, Seb, it was asked to be his first time going live. Right. It was also SPDs first time going live. Right. And we, we knew exactly what we had to do. Right. And not, I wouldn't say to win. I just wanted to say that, you know, we knew, we knew exactly what we had to do to compete against, you know, teams like FCB and Right. And we put in, put in many hours, put in many hours of practice, you know, um, approached, um, people that, that have done live, you know, approach them and then, you know, invite them to our Academy to check out our set and all that, you know, so that, so that we go in feeling a hundred percent, then I, and, and it worked out for us.
Sahab Grover:There was a going into competition. Right. He performed, yeah. Obviously amazing performance. There's a time though that, you know, the jumps were off, right? Yeah. yeah. Let's go into the
Prabh Saini:jumps. Right. You talk about it.
Sahab Grover:So there was a, so the, the, the, um, the, the, the jumps were off, right? Yeah. Now I just want to talk about more. I know we're going to go into a little bit details of that, but. Not just that, like, when you're a leader, just think about big respect when you're a leader and you make a mistake, there is a whole nother of like level of like impact because the only person to hold you accountable is, is you lips, right. As you, cause you're in that leadership position. So can I talk about that? What happened after, like what was the reaction from the team? How did you feel? And then I remember there was, there was a cool moment, the award ceremony that y'all did, but those we can talk about all those pieces about like, it was a very small moment, but I think it's impactful and show impactful in defining you as,
Prabh Saini:as a leader. Um, yes. Thank you. So, uh, let's talk about that. Everything I haven't watched that video on, um, on YouTube. I always skip through it or if there are guests over, I look away for that one moment. Right. But anyways, um, so the Dole started played a role on stage that wasn't heard from us before or bias before. Right. Um, When he played that for, I don't know, for some reason I couldn't hear it. The crowd was going crazy as well, because we were jumping and all that. Um, I couldn't hear the toll beat. And so, um, who was, who was behind me at that time, it was staged. But I think digital also can hear that either. Right. Um, and we both went off beat and then my guys, the energy. So the judges said that the energy that came into some guys on your team was, was amazing right after the noticed that you've, that you've gone up beat. Right. And I think the reason to that was I asked individually, well, one of my guys blues, where you guys right from MTV, I asked you on the K what happened? Cause he was right behind me, like right behind me, but he didn't go off beat. He was in the center, he didn't go off beat. And the energy that he produced at that time was amazing. And I talked to him like, Hey, what happened there? You know, like what, what came into your mind? And he's like, Hey, you've always emphasized on recovery. Like, you've always talked about, if you make a mistake, it's not about the mistake, then it's about the recovery. He's like, I just wanted to make sure that if that happened, I don't want that to be the reason of why we lose is like, I just want to put in everything I had at that point and ending also started as well. So for me, it was like either die today or, you know, or I take this moment from here to another level. Right. So a lot of guys thought that way because I always tell them, I'm like, Hey, it's all about the recovery. You have to recover properly. Right. And as soon as you can, I did recover, but it still took me a second or two. And in the meantime, the team held it down. And my situation after that was, was, was, was really bad. Had, let me tell you that I wanted to, I went, I went into this, um, this hallway and then, you know, I was really pissed off that, that, that ended up happening. Right. I had a competition with totally, I mean, um, the old stodgy and. You know, we talked and I'm like, Hey, what happened there? You know, he's like, Hey, I felt it. And I, it just came out, but it was all on beat and all that. And I just couldn't hear it. God knows it was because of the monitors or whatever, but I just couldn't hear it. And it was a bad moment, but the team ended up holding it up there and then we still had it. Yep.
Sahab Grover:Yeah. There was a, and then you ended up doing the, you ended up redoing the whole, uh, after you all had one ended up doing yeah. Yeah. At
Prabh Saini:the award ceremony, I had to do it. I had to do a toast, soggy, their case, you know, we had like, we were holding our hands. Like if, I don't know if you looked at it, like the video still is up on YouTube and we were all like holding hands and when our name got announced, we went in there and I just talked to stodgy. I'm going to start you, can we do the last segment here? And then we did
Sahab Grover:it. Okay. So now this is like, I think a kind of a paradigm shift is, did you feel, and I'm going to ask this. Did you feel like you were the underdog before at all ever, like, did you feel like during this rise that you were an underdog at any time?
Prabh Saini:Not
Sahab Grover:really not really. So like, how would you, how would you define your team during this whole time? Did you say like during 2015, all the way through 22 MCB, do you feel like the top dog at that time?
Prabh Saini:Sorry, but I just wanted to compete. I simply wanted the name to be out there. It was getting out there, but it wasn't all the way out there.
Sahab Grover:So for fever and big out for fever and big time, which happened in 2017, almost a year after I'm CB. So there's about a year gap between those two competitions. Um, what was, what was the goal with fever, fever and big and big time? What was the, what were you trying to achieve? Because you've already been winning first place. And so what was it? And you
Prabh Saini:think that what you're trying to achieve at fever, it was a whole new story, man. And if you will, we had, um, you know, this DJ that made our mix and we wanted, there was a Hill. He like, you have a smile on your face. See, so you knew about that, right? Um,
Sahab Grover:so not
Prabh Saini:everybody knows. So we had this online, you know, Um, behind the screen fight with these, these guys and you know, one of these guys after it was so after big, uh, no after Pamela fever, um, is when he released a mix, he put it up online and of course, teams that were competing with us, they would, you know, listen to that mix. Right. It's very obvious. Right. They will listen to that mix. And then we had a fever before, big 10 already. And the gap in between those two competitions was only two weeks. Right? So people have no, not at this point after Punjab people, people have already seen our performance. Right. And I wanted to make some changes into our set, but that mix being released, it just completely, um, it just completely forced us to put more time. Right. And, you know, be more careful and bring so much attention to our, to our practices and all that. Um, but upon a fever, um, it was and just newer. I think his name was, yeah. I just know what his first competition and I was very scared. I'm like, Hey, these guys are new guys. I trained them in this and that, but I don't know what's going to happen. It was NAB deeps, first competition as well. The guys from NYP D that'd be to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, Hey, you know, I've been, you know, struggling to get a first because I really want to get a first place and this and that. He was focused towards that. And I'm like, Hey bro, it's not about the place gear, but you're definitely going to be, you know, putting up a good performance and now take this in, you know, taking all those dreams, taking all those, um, hopes, feelings, emotions, um, you know, go into the competition and then realizing that on stage, you can't even place your foot there properly and dance. It was so freaking slippery. You write that one. It's talking about the, I'm talking about the bundle, the hamper stages that once they didn't ever want to step on again, Right. I was talking to this friend the later on, too. He had Punjab after that year. Right. I'm the cake, you know, has been that we will come in, but like, you have to do something about that stage unless last stepping on that stage, for sure. For sure. So before we stepped on that stage support, after tech time, we realized that the stage is way too slippery. So we tried putting Coke on our feet, like Coca Cola on our feed. Right. And tried stepping on stage before we performed. But then I realized right, when the dust gets like, like right when your foot catches the dust, like the sticky material catch it, the dust, it gets even more slippery. Right. It gets worse. Right. So, um, we didn't, we didn't go with that idea. We didn't go with the idea at all. And then we just went onstage. I told my guys I'm like, Hey guys, we can not slip and fall. Like we can no, not do that. So what we're going to do is we're gonna, you know, like bring our energies a little, like. Just keep it like normalized, keep it stabilized so that we don't slip and have proper grip of the ground with your feet. Right. And my guys did that and nobody ended up falling and we put up great performance. We won first place. Um, and that was every team's concern. Every team's concern, every team was concerned was that was concerned about that, but the slippery stage, um, but we ended up winning first place. We were happy, but I knew for a fact that I was not happy after performing on that stage. I really wasn't. I felt like we, we practiced so much. And then, you know, we ended up putting up a performance that we're, we ourselves not happy with. Right. It left me with something. But then in two weeks I had big 10 and that is a reason why people feel like there was, there was such a huge, such a massive difference between between showing ourselves off at Pamela fever and big 10 at big 10, the stage was ready for us. We changed our set. We were all heated up. Because of that whole DDA situation, you released our mix. And then after we released it, I had about like eight days left. And then those eight days I changed 50% of the set, right train. My guys, you know, took all that out, took all that hate to call that aggressiveness and, you know, turned it into, you know, energy time practices and, you know, put up a great performance, a big 10 and big 10 is by far one of my favorite performances.
Sahab Grover:Now that you're, now that you're in this position where you're like a top dog, do you feel that your competitiveness you're like, like what do you have a damn like, it feels good to hear that. I mean like, he's like when you're like 2017, right? Yeah. Like you're going in. Like, I, I was like, okay, it's either FCB or SPD. Like that's, who's going to win. No question about it. What, how does an, I want to ask this question? What was the competitive nature of your team? Because what, from what I heard was it was like, and I'm being fully transparent with you that it was like you had a very cutthroat mentality to everyone at the company. And you were like, essentially like, uh, like get out of our way. We're going to win as rude as it
Prabh Saini:sounds. So has, come on. You, you remember you've met me any times at gigs too in Detroit. Like we went, we go to the, where many times, right? I know you've told me so many times. Right. And that too, as a person that doesn't know me, that I don't know. How did you feel? Did you feel like approached you, like, you know, as a person that, you know, didn't put a smile on his face and just, and just,
Sahab Grover:you feel like this is a question I'll ask. Do you feel like the people like apply an image to you? Like apply it to your, like this image of a cockiness or arrogance? Do you think people apply that image to you?
Prabh Saini:Okay. Yeah. Before I answer that question, you have to answer my question first though. Gotcha. So when we met in Detroit a few times and you approached me every single time, What'd you think of me? I thought you were
Sahab Grover:fucking asshole. Like I hate this guy. No joke. Fuck you. no dude. Honestly, when I, when I first I think we first met at, um, I dunno where it was, whatever it was, it was a while back, but I always felt that there was like a, more of a, um, I thought we made a personable connection. I didn't make any assumptions. If somebody were telling me you're an asshole, I didn't give a shit. I just, uh, that could be a good thing and a bad thing. Cause sometimes there are times you shouldn't listen to other people, but I, I just go with my gut feeling and say, no, I'm going to, I'm going to go with my own judgment.
Prabh Saini:I mean, you know, at competitions, like when, okay, now back to your questions, like when we go into competitions, right? If anybody is, people can be thinking, get behind when that audio Anna, now a lot of, uh, junior dancers or like teams that are, that are, that are trying to become, um, this so routine that they look up to, right? A person might not even approach you. email, don't email because they're competing with you. Right. But on the other side, you know, I'm okay with anybody approaching me, just like you did, right? Every single time we met, you had the same questions. Like you're asking me today, this and that, you know, how did you guys change from this year to that year? You always had questions like that. You know, I was always open to answering your questions right?
Sahab Grover:In 2018, SPD can beat a Bruin bungalow. Throughout these past three or four years, SPD went to competitions. That's solely focused on the execution of proper Pungo. Typically these judging rubrics deemphasize production value, or sometimes what we call gimmicks in their sites. Bruno Pamela is a competition that heavily emphasized production value in the set, whether it be larger than life props, or even using a projector in the back to enhance your performance. The memorability of Bruin Bonita sets come from the production value. This was a new challenge for SBU to face as no team from Canada, never placed let alone one Bruin Bangarra as speedy was here to change that we weren't. Uh, and we're not talking about brewing 2018. This was the, probably the most different cop that you hit. You went to obviously understand the value. Yeah. Um, w w what was the goal going to burn? And you're trying to prove
Prabh Saini:many dancers from my team. They wanted to go to Bruin. Yeah. But I never wanted to go to brewing. Okay. Um, because of the way it's. It's it's, it's, it's built like the rubric and all that. Right. Many gimmicks were seen in the past that had nothing to do with bungalow whatsoever, but they were still appreciated and all that. Right. So it wasn't like a folk and traditional bungalow competition. And that's the one category that we were kind of exceeding in. Right. Um, we then finally decided that we were going to go to Right. Um, I don't know the organizer's name, but he approached me. What was the name again? Do you know, Sahab grudge. There we go. Yeah, the ranch, my man right there. So good to the guy that approached. And, uh, we, I talked to him and I'm like, Hey man, um, you know, but gimmicks welcome the competition of it, but we're planning on applying, right? So like, you know, if he could do something about the gimmicks and all that, I'm like if it's given like, so see the thing is, if it's a part of the competition, you can't wait, you can wait gimmicks 50% and then pangolin 50%, if gimmicks are 5%, 10%, that, that that's fine. Or even 1500, I mean, not 59, 15, five or 10 is fine. Right. But not more than that. Right. Right. Then I'm going to be starting thinking, starting to think it'd be in my plan too, if I'm going to competition or, or, or something else or the competence level of gimmicks. Right. And there's just something like that in there. So grunge is like, yeah, man, don't worry. You know, we'll take care of you guys. And, uh, you know, we'll make some changes. No changes were made anytime soon. And we had already applied. Right. So major change in this exhibit to be going major changes as you get that rubric individually. But we still plan, we still planned on, you know, competing at that competition. So we did.
Sahab Grover:Okay. Yeah. One of the why I want to follow up on that question when we went to 2019 Bruin. Yeah. Right. One of the things that the judge has told us, um, was that the rubric was not like the rubric in 2018. Okay. So, yeah. But, but I'm hear from you that the rubric was wasn't was never changed. So, was there any, like, was there really any modifications to the rubric?
Prabh Saini:The only modification we asked for was in the gimmick section. Okay. Right. So, and I, now, right now, I don't even remember if it was, it was made if that change was made, but that was the only change that asked grumps to make. Right. And he gave me different examples. He's like, if the team did this gimmick, it wasn't appreciated. Or, um, you know, had another do with bungalow, then didn't get marked for it. Um, so many things were brought up and I don't, if there were any major changes made to the rubric section, but I remember calling it out and I remember asking him for, for that little change, if you could make that. And I feel like if a team didn't place in 2019, because the rubric wasn't what it was in 29, 2018, the only change that was made in 2018, if it was made was the rubric section. So is, did that team really come to 22, the 2019 competition for Punjab, for gimmicks, right? Or did something else happen? So like, that's my question. See, like I could, I could really get in there and be like, even like I heard, like teams were talking about how the rubric was changed in 2018, right. For our performance. If it was changed, it was changed for the, for the, for the betterment of I don't even know if that's a word, but anyways, it was, it was going to add onto Bhangra. All right. So I mean, teams ruling to get their, get their, to get their stuff straight.
Sahab Grover:When there's a, when there's a conversation of you shouldn't have, you shouldn't have one brew in 2018, how do you wrap it? You shouldn't, you shouldn't have one brew in 2018. How would you react to someone saying that, um, that you shouldn't have placed at that competition? Or you should have not got first place? That's a, it's a tough question. People have said that to me before, and I've gotten pissed off. I've gotten upset. I would
Prabh Saini:want to hear your reaction. There was this one guy that said, um, to one of these other dancers. That, uh, that, that also competed the competition, but he came to me later on. He's like, Oh, buggy, uh, the other guy said that, Oh, I could do 50 jumps at the end, after the performance. What was a big deal about that? All right. I could do 50 jumps. Right? What was the big deal about that, man? Right. They took a break after the performance was done right now. And then you could do anything, right? You could do anything. Then if you could do 50 jumps at the, at the end of your performance, after the performance was done, after taking a 32nd break or a five second break, or a ten second break, you could have done anything. See the people that play second or third or even fourth, or even like a God knows where they're always going to have problems with the team, with the teams that would play at first. Right now you, you could be, you know, someone came up to me and they're like, give me, even though I've heard people say, hi, he he's, he could be an asshole or he's an asshole. W who do you think these people are? These people are the people that have never seen me that had never met me. That portray an image of me from far behind. From sitting behind the screen or from just watching me from far away or right. Or that have lost to me in the past. Right. I'm not a good person to them. You know, you hardly find those personalities that carry amazing personality traits that want to learn that want to come to you later on, for example, you Sahab, right. That would come to people that, that they wanna learn from that they want to take something from in a positive note, right. Others are just there to point fingers, man.
Sahab Grover:Well, the question it kind of a kind of question I want to ask was this one is specific because I actually kind of remember seeing this personally, when I witnessing it personally was a lot, I know a lot of the dancers and we even talked about this, like that, the broom performance and a lot of mistakes in it. Right. Um, in terms of like, you know, someone's like couldn't dog got caught on something soft lock, um, you know, made a mistake here and there. And I know that you, you, a lot of the dancers were upset because you hold them to a high standard. Yeah. Um, How'd you approach it as a leader? Like what did how'd you handle that situation? Um, especially with given the amount of time and money you've put into Bruin.
Prabh Saini:All right. Um, so after the performance, um, I was the last one to, to come to where we were all getting dressed up and all that before the competition, before the performance. I mean, so when I walked in there, um, there were two guys that were not a part of that group. Okay. They were scared, whatever the case was. Um, and when I was talking to them, most of them were crying most of them. Right. And I've never seen it quite like that before. Right. They knew exactly what they've done. They, they knew that they disappointed me. Um, there was this one guy I'm not going to talk about, am I going to tell you his name? He's not a part of our team, not for that reason, but he's just not a part of the team. Um, he had his former get stuck. Okay. So I, whenever I, you know, whenever I coach. Uh, whenever I'm practicing with my team, I always, I always put a lot of important, like I give a lot of importance to recovering, like the recovery process of a mistake. Right? So this man, he couldn't recover, he just quit. So tell me if your firmware are stuck and the lights turn off on stage, would you not put everything in it? Like just get rid of it. And he tried it as well. He tried to get rid of it, but apparently it came off later on in the performance. So like, yeah, we had many mistakes like that. I mean, um, Navdeep, Chicago, it got stuck with the form when he dropped it right away. Right. Um, so I had conversations with them that, Hey guys, this is how you could have approached the situation, right? This is, uh, this is what you could've done instead. Right. But on stage you know, it's thinking, okay, when you step on stage, it's a complete different experience. And you have to make sure that you were well-prepared so that you're not thinking about what's the next move. It should be the muscle memory. Right. But if you end up making a mistake, your only focus should be towards recovering properly. Right. So even though we made a lot of mistakes, um, I did have this conversation with my team later on and they were broken. They were heartbroken, but I guess there were many good things towards just like MCB. The judges said, did he guilty with they're Lego guilty, not able to be there because rest of your set, like the way you choreographed it, the way segments fell in and the energy that was produced on stage, the bondings that was there, the bonding that was clearly clearly visible by the judges, by the audience, it took over, they took over that mistake
Sahab Grover:after taking over the North American feminists circuit, where would SPD go next? It seems obvious. Right? Go back to the roots of pump it up, go to India. SPD took their talents to India and to pump it out arena 2019, a little bit of background Bartow arena is a yearly competition that both live. And music Bhangra teams across India compete at it's the closest thing in India to a North American pharma competition in terms of the structure and how it's run SPD went up, I'm going to Reno to compete in the live bummer category, which is a very daring feat. So what broadband SPD be able to topple this challenge like they did with the rest of the challenges they faced over the past five years? Well, keeping it to, you know, SPD comps, I think the there's another year gap, like we were talking about before. Yeah. And now that year gap goes into, um, Bangarra arena 2019. Yeah. Okay. Um, how is this one different from MCB in terms of preparation? That's the first question, cause this is your second live comp. So D was, what was it? How's the cop preparation different
Prabh Saini:for this one? So when it comes to bungalow arena, um, I judged a bunk arena in 2018. Right. So if I had seen that world's best live teams. Come, you know, come to that competition, right. Or they're in Punjab and they, they, they would be competing at the competition in the future as well. So going into 2019, I was appointed as a judge again, but then I changed my mind. I said, I will be going there bringing my team there, right. To compete. Right. Because we never said no to challenges. We never said no to, um, to two lineups that has strong teams. I'm sure we can, you can take along that, on that. Um, any competence that we went to, we had had, it had amazing teams that had teams that, you know, worked for their name that made their name, you know, we went against them. So, uh, when we decided to go to arena, um, the approach was completely different practices. Were there every day? One thing that I don't recommend is practicing every day, you know, give yourself a, your body needs resting as well. And, uh, if you don't want to be injured, just do not practice every day, but still do it five days in a week. Um, but we practiced every day for Um, The energy was amazing, so much stamina, um, performance back-to-back back-to-back, um, you know, we practice in our Academy as well, but we also, we also booked other auditoriums just to see how it would feel on, on a wooden floor, you know, instead of mats, um, you know, had drones come in, you know, take our, you know, make a video from of us from the top, you know, um, just to see how, how we would look to see like little things here and there, like the lines that would go off the guys that not with that would not face, um, the, um, the direction that they're, that I'm telling them to face, um, lifting smiles, expressions, like nice videos that would tell us about our mistakes, right? So we put in a lot of effort and time into this man, um, to go into the competition that, um, they wanted to compete in.
Sahab Grover:Um, one of the things that the, one of the big things was that you're now going to India and competing, which is a huge difference. Yeah. Um, especially monetarily. Yeah. Um, Hmm. Talk about, talk about some of the hurdles of competing in India. Uh, when I think about the monetary side, I think that's like a big hurdle. Yeah. Because I know that other people in the founder community have had this idea of going to India. And I think it's great because it helps us connect our, you know, the world department, our world together. Yeah. So what were some of the hurdles that you had to overcome when, when you're
Prabh Saini:competing? The biggest one was funding. The second one was communication, right? Communication. Yeah. When it came to funding, of course, like was in our hands. So we were going to make sure if we are, you know, if we're financially to go to India and compete there, we weren't, we believe we made it work. So anyways, we're in India now. And then, um, the arrangements that were made by the committee, um, they were those arrangements where they expected us to sleep in. So we were 16. They expected us. All of us, like 16, including, um, you know, girls in our parents. They expected us to sleep in like two rooms. Um, you know, and like, it was, it was very bad. Like when we would go, when we got, there was the arrangements were not good. We have to, like, I had to be out all night looking for hotels. Um, you know, and then staying in a hotel that was out of her budget, but that could meet our expectations, you know, that could meet our standards. It was just a nice, like a clean bed sheet and not a sheet full of shit, you know, like orders to Hey, Mark and all that. So, um, we finally got a hotel. We stayed in there. And then, I mean, these were some things that we were planning on before the competition, right? When we were here in Canada, that work, we're going to go there and we're not going to struggle in these things. We're going to be stabilized in that category right there when it comes to the booking hotels, sleeping at night and all that. Right. But because we already had our band that was from India and we had to practice with them. So we had booked the school's auditorium. Yeah, we booked the school's auditorium and that's where we arranged a whole, like a better sound system then we were provided with, at the competition. So let me tell you this. We had a better sound system for practices in India than at the competition, right? So we had to like arrange practices there. The drive was 45 minutes. We had, you know, we would drive 45 minutes to get taxis and, uh, you know, drive to that school every day, practice there. And we have, we had about what, four to five practices in three days before the competition, three to four days before the competition. And, um, yeah, the hurdles were, were there, but we are proud of what we put on stage and that's, I mean, that's, that's what that matters.
Sahab Grover:This was an, and I know we already talked about this. We talked about it last time, but this was like your first time losing after long, after a long time.
Prabh Saini:Yes.
Sahab Grover:After a very long time, you first time losing. We also have the videos that happened afterwards, right. The whole, whole thing. And I think that we hear from different stories, but you're on this podcast now. Yeah. We were from different perspectives. Yeah. You're on this podcast now. And want to kind of talk about from your perspective, what are, how, what ended up happening at that moment when right before the placings were announced for Rena, what was going on? What was going on from your, from your eyes?
Prabh Saini:Yeah, so, you know, a lot of people have already seen our video and they have seen that there was a drummer segment in our performance, just like there is in every other area of their performance, but in our tumor segment, there was something called the Marcia, not the Marsha is a part of tumor. Like if you watch the long tumor performances for like 10 minutes, like the only tumor performances performances that are only dedicated to tumor, right. You will see the monster segments. So we wanted to incorporate the Marcia into our bucket of performance and. You know, bring that idea out and, you know, would want more teams to follow that because of course it puts a lot more attention and it brings a lot more attention, um, towards the Punjab performances overall. Right. Um, so wanted to do that. We talked to the judges about it. Um, we talked to, um, balancing Baila and hoping give it to the bouncing ball. I would talk to that one judge that was not announced until the end of the competition until the day of the competition. Right? The surprise we call it a surprise judge. So, you know, he didn't, he didn't know about it, but all the other judges knew about it, that we were going to have that breadth with bouncing by love. We have recordings. Absolutely. So if you would want to post recordings on your podcast about this whole thing, we could all send you recordings. Um,
Sahab Grover:that'd be great. Right?
Prabh Saini:So, um, and then thinking that this judge is saying, aha, this is a part of, uh, too much. This is a part of, um, the, the, the dance anyway. So there's no problem. So our second question to the judge was, Hey, we have a certainty. There's a certainty. That is a folk side. It's a folk side. It's a folk instrument that we would like to use in our performance. He's the right. So he had no problems with it whatsoever that the answers that we got that were very confident, like jihad. These are, these are okay. But I know for a fact, yeah, that it has not been done before in India. Right. I performed in the affability in India and I know like authored will sell their, their rules in India. Right. So I talked to the organizer of the competition on the K bro. Um, you know, their rules that are in India. Naina but in your competitions, you're telling me I can bring as many instrumentalists as I want. I can bring as many subjects as I want. Right. So. He's like, yeah, man, it's a, it's a, it's just a competition. And he's like, this is a competition in Delhi. This is not a competition taking place in Punjab. So we make our own rules. And in our rubric here, you can bring as many people as you want in your event, you can bring as many members as you want on the go, but that's fine. So we brought, we had suddenly we had to be, we had fluid as well, right into my segment. I had this one guy that was going to switch from playing TMB. No, that was going to switch from playing. I think one of the instruments to playing a flute as well, just to add onto the tumor segment. Right? So we took advantages. We took it. We took advantage of having no rules, no, no limitations there. Right. Um, but you know, after we performed, uh, before they announced the results, um, before, like they said anything, they started talking about this surprise judge. The last minute judge that was called on, um, uh, his name is cook. Right. He went on stage and he's like, Hey, that the whole side of the, how can a team bring the machine inside of tomorrow, eight Daniel soda. Right. Um, get, you know, we always have four soggy, so four band members, right. Maximum five, but we can never have eight band members. How can that, how is that even possible? So he started saying all that stuff and right when we heard it, the first person to talk from our team was our band coach pronouncing sundew buggy. Right. He couldn't take it because he was, the call was made from his phone. Right. And he he's the one who recorded the call. Right. And I, we had the recordings of it. I had, I have heard the recording of it too. Right. So those were recordings who needs to get out, but we were sure it can be we can just, you know, pull the recording and all that. Right. So even though we talked to the judges about it, now, imagine me talking to you about it. You've given me a very confident answer. Right, right. But on the other side, Anelle goes on stage tomorrow and tells, could be, how can that even happen? So whose fault is it? Right. That's my question to the audience whose fault is it? Right? It's not the team's fault that has put like freaking $40,000 in coming into, into, into, into a competition that didn't even treat them nicely, you know? And by night treatment, I don't want it to be today. bottle. Right. All I want, all I wanted was proper communication and the honest right. Answers, right. Answers. And why was I asking? Because I didn't want anything like that to happen on stage, so we didn't care if we even placed or not at that competition. Why? Because we were being disrespected on stage. Right? We were, he was trying to tell people something that we already confirmed. What the other four judges
Sahab Grover:was, this, the audio just confirming was this like, when there's a video, that's kind of like, from a top view angle, that's like pointing down right towards the front of stage. Was that the judge who was like talking and then someone, I don't know who came up to the stage first. Is that, is that the person who you're talking about who went and kind of said all these things at the
Prabh Saini:time he was growing a baby pink bug and a baby pink comedian.
Sahab Grover:Yeah, I think so. Okay. And so like essentially, and the, kind of the reaction that happened to that was pretty crazy. Yeah. So we started, yeah. Yeah. Pretty good. Yeah. I was just going to ask, like, did, was there any, like, so I, I, I mean like what, like what ended up happening after that? From what my, from what I saw was, you know, you guys were really upset. You went like on Instagram or something like that, you start posting on your story. Like, there are other, obviously other people posting on their stories and whatever, and all that stuff. And I remember getting like a text being like, yo, like, dude, like you need to go see what's going on. And I was like, I was like, Oh shit. Like, you know, like always SPD video live. I thought was like, Oh, the video is live. I want to like check out the video. I think that's what they were talking. I thought that's what we're talking about. But then I saw everything else. Were there any things that you in that whole moment, like out of all that were like points that you regretted. How do you think that you
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Prabh Saini:it happened in the moment? And right now, there, there are situations, um, that you just can't handle. Right? If someone's, if someone's say saying something that you can't not hear or cannot take from anyone in the moment, you would react differently. Versus what if you get like five, 10 minutes to think about it. Right. And you won't react that way, but because we were it's humanity, like we're all humans, men, you know, we can only take, we can only tolerate certain things, right. There were people in the auditorium, you know, when you pointed, when you pointed some things out and we knew that he is, he, you know, that there is a lack of communication in between the judges. Right. You know, we had to call them out. All we started saying was that the judge right beside you, we confirmed it with him. Why isn't he stopping you? Or why didn't he stop you? Why isn't he coming up and saying anything? Right. I called up her deep things hold as well. Right. The judge that I confirmed with and he, you know, he's, he's, you know, w we're good friends, right? I'm the one who, you know, gave him that spot that, you know, he's going to judge at the competition. Right. Bhangra, I read in Hardeep Sahota are, they didn't know each other. Right. If just meet knew Hardeep Singh Sahota that, it was just like a friend. And I was given that spot as a judge. Right. And that's why Hardeep Singh Sahota was not on the board. Right. So when I stepped down, I'm like, you know what? He, there is no, there isn't the another person because they wanted the judge from Canada. So I'm the kid, this is another person. Right. They can look into. Right. So when I confirm things that Hardeep Singh Sahota, he didn't come up on stage and supported that yes, this team has taken the time out to, to, you know, communicate with us. And this is what has happened. Right. But anyways, you know, Hardeep and I are good now. Um, and I mean, it's, it's, it is something that has left a huge, huge, huge Mark on my. On my mind on my soul, right on my heart, when it comes to Bhangra, um, the things happen. Right. Uh, but we just didn't expect it, that it would go down that way. Right. Especially from our judges, of course, but the Indian judges, it was expected, but that's why we made efforts. You know, that's why we made phone calls. That's what we communicated with them. Awesome. To ask them, Hey, do you have any problems with these things that we're trying to incorporate in our performances? And they're like, no, man, we have no problems whatsoever. But when they, when they did, it was too late, it was too, it was too late. Right. And after that, I mean, yeah, we had to come live there. I mean, one thing that I want to tell Duke, tell you, though, there's a video on YouTube as well. Anybody that was in the auditorium, they were supporting us. You know, we had, we had gotten so much support, so much love from people from all over the world. Um, it, it was overwhelming. I was blessed. I was happy that we were getting so much support and I had to tell people that this is what happened. This is our take towards it. And do I regret it? Yes, I do. So I have, if you want to hear that, yes, I do. You know, nobody wants to get out of their character and do something like that, like point fingers, you know, and get angry, you know, and, and just lose your voice, you know, but we were honest and I was just, I mean, we just wanted to tell people that this is our take. Like we have, we have taken steps prior to the performance to make sure that this lack of communication does not take place, but it still did. Like, we still got hunted down, you know, and, and guess who's going to pay for the loss, nobody else. But we, right. Yeah. If we lost in any other way, like give you just had the performance and I want to say it right here, that there were mistakes in our performance. There were things that I would like to change for the coming performances. That I would never do again, there are decisions that I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna make that will of course add onto a performance from now on. Right. But the way it happened, that wasn't the right way. That is not the way I expect that I would lose ever. Right. And I hope any team that ever performances, any team that loves Bhangra, anything that goes live or thinks about going live in Canada or India. I hope it, something like that never happens to them.
Sahab Grover:There is a feeling of like, you know, you're okay. If someone, like we talk about this, we're okay. If someone beats us in an area we can't control. Like we can't control. If someone is to a certain degree, like how creative a team is going to be compared to us, that's sometimes out of our control. But when it comes to cleaning execution, if we lose in that area, that's all us. And we feel that, you know, like we feel that accountability and, um, I can, and you feel like you lost for the wrong reasons. And that's like, those losses hurt more than anything. And I get what you're saying. You said that you said something like we were hunted down. What do you, what did you mean by that?
Prabh Saini:Hunted down as like the judge that went on stage, he hunted us down for the things that we brought up on stage, but they were already, you know, we already talked to the dentist about it.
Sahab Grover:You were like singled out. You were targeted. Yeah. Yeah. Um, like instead of talking about how good other performances were over you, you, they put you in more and more down. Yeah. Right. Kind of like they came to the approach, like we knew we were wearing, we weren't necessarily saying the right thing, but we need to validate ourselves. That's that's I can kind of see that perspective. Um, the other piece I wanted to say was, uh, I'm forgetting the question now, but it was something about the, um, That judge, is it normal in India for the judges before they announced the placings to validate why they do a certain set
Prabh Saini:of places? Does this do? And apparently that does always does.
Sahab Grover:Oh, okay. That's right. That's what I heard. Yeah. That's what I heard. Yeah. Where you, were you ready for that at all? Um, or did you know he was gonna do that?
Prabh Saini:I wasn't. Um, so mostly he goes up on stage and he says a few things about like, you know, uh, back in the days, uh, bungalow dancers used to wear, um, you know, like teared up. Portay you know, uh, I mean ripped by, you know, teared up, I mean court day. Right. But how come dancers these days have so much bling on their freaking jackets and vests and Courtney and pug dine, Jada days. We had a problem with that. Right. Um, I think it's very important for anybody, anybody to know that if anybody should not, for example, let me give you an example. Now, witness, he was thought. The Dole player that played for us, he has been out of the circuit for about 15, 20 years now, maybe more right now, the judge that was judging, he has been, have you, did you see their performance when they performed upon the arena? Who? The judges, the Indian judges. Oh God. Oh God. Right. For me, by when he went from giving performs, you can look at him performing and he can tell, he knows, he knows Bhangra. When theater is performed, man, it was, it was, it was a disaster. I don't, I'm not going to say that they were drunk, but it looked like they were drunk. Right. It appeared that they were drunk, right? Like if someone has been out of the for about 15, 20 years, man, don't let that person judge check out their background. Right. Go check out their background. Things have changed over time. Bunker that answers now on stages do not wear. Ripped quarter ripped other, they ripped apart, you know, you opened up these have done an amazing job worldwide, you know, in putting themselves out there on the map. And it's, it's time to realize that I'm against a lot of bling on vests and Cortez. Well, but some could I normal, could I, that looks nice. Like our Verde was appreciated by Indian teams, every team that competed there, if we were dressing up every, almost every team came up to us and they were like, you're and the, that judge that was talking about, yeah. He wasn't even talking about, about the, he was talking about the different things about the, but I'm just saying that, you know, it's time that we realized that Bangladesh is not going to come up on stage and dance with ripped up clothes.
Sahab Grover:Yeah. I mean, why would you do that? You're putting, you're presenting yourself. How would you present, present yourself in like, uh, yeah. Uh, and they're like, you're not prepared here. Uh, now there was another, so another year break happened and we went into Groundshaker pumping like 20, 20. Yes, sir. That was obviously canceled because of COVID. Um, and it was live seven days before seven days, seven days before cop. So you had, did you have your set completely prepared? All good. You both, you were about to you two were about to go. I know you were kind of yeah. Cause I knew it was going to be there with thoughts and you're all competing in the music category, but, uh, yeah. So you guys were, you, were you prepared completely a hundred percent, that's it? Yeah. That
Prabh Saini:answers everything.
Sahab Grover:And, uh, how was that? If you could give us a preview of what that was going to look like? Cause we never for audit for us to like, imagine what the performance is going to be like, what was it again that was going to be somebody that was
Prabh Saini:going to be an eye-opener for people that think that on the other side that think that nothing bad happened up on Guarino. Right? Um, I'm not sure there's nobody that thinks that way. Um, everyone thinks that, you know, SPD, you know, communication should have been better. Right? And judges should have given them the right answers, but a ground, or of course, like I didn't leave any room for communication. I also didn't take any risks. I was not going to take any risks. I was not going to do anything new, but of course, a new set, right. A different approach. What, just the lessons that I learned from the previous competition, all of that was going to be part of it. And people were going to see an amazing, amazing performance. That's all I could tell you. Okay.
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