"kal chaudvin ki raat thi.."

har roz yeh sochta hun ki bhool jaun use
har roz yeh hi baat bhool jata hun...

before i forget to record this experience i must type down it.
Place - Kolkata, Time - 5.30 PM, Venue - Nazrul Manch, Southern Avenue
Event - Umeed (A musical journey with Ghulam Ali and Jagjit Singh)

By the time I entered the hall and found a place to sit, Khan Sahab was already on his seat. He had to urge, unfortunately not for the last time, to the audience to settle down in their respective seats. People kept coming and coming noisily and settling down noisily (if you have not already got it - sandals of ladies, good-to-look-at-but-noisy jewelery, shoes, words where hand signals would have done and of course the newest menace-mobile phones). They were bothering my attention. Nevertheless Khan Sahab started. Humility - that is the first thing that would strike you about this colossus of an artist. He never gave any signs of that, he did not talk to audience much but that wonderful but rare quality comes out and you feel embraced by the man himself. My introduction to Khan Sahab is not much, I have had the fortune of listening to his most popular numbers and that is it. But in a live performance I could feel that connection a performer makes with the audience, real, spontaneous and true. He started with couple of ghazals that I had never heard and despite the desperate efforts of the people pouring in noisily I sat in awe of the wonderful poetry of the words and the melodious and soulful rendition. If you are thinking that may be I complain too much, you should have heard the pleading tone of Khan Sahab in the midst of a performance asking the audience to settle down, stop using cameras, mobiles, recorders etc. I was just reminded of a few lines of Auden - "In relation to a writer(or a performer like Khan Sahab), must readers(audience) believe in double standard: they may be unfaithful to the writer(or performer) as often they like, but the writer must never, never be unfaithful to them"
After an hour and half of being treated to pure devotion to the perfection of music/art - you may call it performance he left the stage for another mastero Jagjit Singh. When he came on stage they embraced each other. Someone who has dived tho the nadirs knows what the other diver who does so, is exposed to; how much of practice, how much of patience, single-minded devotion, absolute dedication to perfection, of an disenchantment with ordinary/mediocre and of course humility is required to be where these two titans of their fields have reached can be really appreciated by only these people. We can only write, speak, eulogies vicariously, second hand at best.
That Jagjit was only a perfectionist came forth very soon, tweaking with the base-revv etc etc..asking for volume of one instrument to be increased, other decreased, softening of the overalls. I was wondering whether the show would be more of the preparation for performance rather than performance itself.
"ye inayaten ghazab ki ye bala ki meherbani
meri khariat bhi poochi kisi aur ki zabani
meri bezuban ankhon se gire hen chand katre
wo samaj saken to ansu na samaj saken to pani "
This was his first and for the first time I closed my eyes and got completely absorbed in the performance. Jagjit's voice was so trained, so ready and so on the spot that it was almost natural for you to concentrate without effort and loose yourself to his music. There is not much point in calling a beautiful flower beautiful. All I can say is "Hoshwalon ko khabar kya...bekhudi kya cheez hai"