Festival: TIMES BANDRA FESTIVAL 3

It was Pankaj Udhas' ghazals on Monday, September 28, 2009 on Dassera day. Venkat and I were really looking forward to it and reached the MMRDA Grounds along with Pooja and Maya quite early to get good seats.

We reached there and got into the fourth row too and were mighty excited. The programme began with Udhas singing the song Zamana karaab hai. It was nice and after this he spoke about how he has been singing for over thirty years. He also explained the lyrics before every song and gave due respect to the poet who had written them.

I liked best the explanation he gave about Nazam - stories that are written in the form of poetry in Urdu and sometimes in Hindi. It contains four verses or bandh. The first speaks about daada-pardaada, the second about the father, the third about oneself and the fourth about the forthcoming generation. The nazam that Udhasji sang for us spoke about the first generation living in mud houses and working on the farm while leading satisfied lives. The second generation lives in brick houses and worked in offices. The present generation lives in bungalows and races by in huge cars but are not so happy with their lives. The poet hopes that the future generation would lead a happy, peaceful and satisfied life. All this came across in the lyrics as Pankaj Udhas sang Dukku sukku ek sabka... ek o bi tha zamana, ek yeh bi hai zamana. It was beautiful.

Jiyo tho jiye kaise... bin aapke is what I liked the best. The artist did sing the much-awaited and eagerly-looked-forward-to song Mohe aayi na jug se laaj main itna zor se naachi aaj, ki ghungroo toot gaye but the background music was too loud and Udhas' voice was buried under. Sad!

Overall, the show was good with the flautist and tabla-artist playing exceptionally well.