Pankaj Udhas came to town. He is a 62 year old native of India who has carved a niche for himself with his melodious bassy (not smelly, but low freq desi) voice to sing Ghazals.
Primarily written as poems of love, the cultural origins are Arabic that made it to the Indus valley in the 11th and 12th centuries and finally morphed into today's music that sometimes appears in popular Hindi dramas created in Bollywood.
For a person of that age I would be surprised if I am able to get a complete coherent sentence out let alone sing with such depth and nuance as to amaze a fan base crowd of about 500 in the local auditorium.
The attendee demographic was largely 40 plus in age and not surprisingly almost 40% Urdu speaking which I had never seen in any bay area gathering before.
Yet some of the native silliness was evident in the organization of the event to the execution of the program. While there was ample surrounds to accommodate and manage the modest crowd the ticket line was a complete mess. One table with crowds surging to get their advance purchased tickets in hand. No lines here. Some feeble attempt later was met with incredulous stares and folks went back to pawing the somewhat clueless and hapless foursome handing them out.
Then we get inside. Because Mr. Udhas probably had his own schedule to keep and local nieces to visit he did kick off the show in time, which is huge for an Indian event, but the introduction from the compere was a Disaster! She litereally in a fake accent blurted something to the effect of - He has won so many awards and I do not know of any.
That must have got him in the mood to start belting out songs about PAIN?
The compere's job is not to interfere but to set the stage in a welcoming frame making the guest feel at home. She was far from it. She was Full of It..being some local FM radio host that likely no one had seen or heard before. She had on more metal than all the instruments combined.
Anyway once we got past that unpleasantness the maestro got on with his act (very subtly not thanking the compere) and enthralled, regaled and made the audience clap. From hits going back 30 odd years - that must be nice to cash the chips late in the game - to more recent compilations of his own - it was worth all the pennies.
He had some new CDs for sale - yes those shiny plastic circles with a hole - but the product itself was not the same - he teased us with some of those and it did not have the same impact as Ghoongroo Toot Gaye or Chandi Jaisa Rang Hai Tera..
Learned a few nuances of what a Ghazal is and what the difference between a Sher vs. a Nazm was.
So all in all a wonderful evening with old and new ghazals - lot of them woven around a drink containing alchohol, literally or metaphorically had me guzzling into the midnight hour. It reminded me of another evening years ago with a North American contemporary of his called Billy. The 'piano man' making love to his tonic and gin vs. the Indian sharabi singing his shers. Another old classic still wonderful today.
Oddly similar... but time well spent!
Primarily written as poems of love, the cultural origins are Arabic that made it to the Indus valley in the 11th and 12th centuries and finally morphed into today's music that sometimes appears in popular Hindi dramas created in Bollywood.
For a person of that age I would be surprised if I am able to get a complete coherent sentence out let alone sing with such depth and nuance as to amaze a fan base crowd of about 500 in the local auditorium.
The attendee demographic was largely 40 plus in age and not surprisingly almost 40% Urdu speaking which I had never seen in any bay area gathering before.
Yet some of the native silliness was evident in the organization of the event to the execution of the program. While there was ample surrounds to accommodate and manage the modest crowd the ticket line was a complete mess. One table with crowds surging to get their advance purchased tickets in hand. No lines here. Some feeble attempt later was met with incredulous stares and folks went back to pawing the somewhat clueless and hapless foursome handing them out.
Then we get inside. Because Mr. Udhas probably had his own schedule to keep and local nieces to visit he did kick off the show in time, which is huge for an Indian event, but the introduction from the compere was a Disaster! She litereally in a fake accent blurted something to the effect of - He has won so many awards and I do not know of any.
That must have got him in the mood to start belting out songs about PAIN?
The compere's job is not to interfere but to set the stage in a welcoming frame making the guest feel at home. She was far from it. She was Full of It..being some local FM radio host that likely no one had seen or heard before. She had on more metal than all the instruments combined.
Anyway once we got past that unpleasantness the maestro got on with his act (very subtly not thanking the compere) and enthralled, regaled and made the audience clap. From hits going back 30 odd years - that must be nice to cash the chips late in the game - to more recent compilations of his own - it was worth all the pennies.
He had some new CDs for sale - yes those shiny plastic circles with a hole - but the product itself was not the same - he teased us with some of those and it did not have the same impact as Ghoongroo Toot Gaye or Chandi Jaisa Rang Hai Tera..
Learned a few nuances of what a Ghazal is and what the difference between a Sher vs. a Nazm was.
So all in all a wonderful evening with old and new ghazals - lot of them woven around a drink containing alchohol, literally or metaphorically had me guzzling into the midnight hour. It reminded me of another evening years ago with a North American contemporary of his called Billy. The 'piano man' making love to his tonic and gin vs. the Indian sharabi singing his shers. Another old classic still wonderful today.
Oddly similar... but time well spent!
I heard him live too, oddly enough, in the US of A- Atlanta, and he was wonderful!
ReplyDeleteOur standard desi joke was that he was India's answer to 'punk' rock.
his 'do' is somewhat punkish.. I must say
ReplyDelete