The death of ghazal

Jagjit Singh is no more. The ghazal maestro whose poignant voice gave many a reason to dare to love despite its signature haplessness, and in the process even unravel a certain chaste Urdu/Persian word or two. Whose silken voice healed many a wound, even when sometimes there was nothing to heal. Who revived the ghazal for us Indians and yet stuck to its core character - poetic expression and the unmistakable pathos of the lovelorn. I, as a mortal, was fortunate enough to go to one of his live concerts in Hyderabad five years back, the prized memory of which shall live with me forever.

His soulful renditions stir and brew a little storm in me every time I listen to one of his effortless creations, and then just like magic that very voice would lull that raging storm as well. I have been witnessing this spell, ever since I was a bratty, moody 13 years old. And through the treasure trove of lilting melodies that he has left behind, I wish to be continued to be bewitched so. May your soul rest in eternal peace. Although I still cannot believe the tragedy. To borrow a YouTube fan's very befitting tribute - "Ghazal died today, again."

Here is one of his many heart-searing ghazals and an old, old favourite. A lover implores his long lost love to be careful in the ways of this shrewd, interfering world. She must not pay heed to people's trivial gossip about their once beautiful past and must guard her present honour. Written by the Urdu poet Kafeel Azer, the intense lines are a coming together of sarcasm and love at its best.

My heart owes so much to him. Every time it was broken or fractured, his voice would mend it and make it ready to brave the world again.

And it didn't have to be love every time.


(Image courtesy, desiclub.com)

Of migraines and ghazals

I must begin this post with a warning - *Rant alert*! There are days when I feel particularly glum, as if I am hanging from a solitary cliff (in a similar dejected fashion like this bug lady in the photo) from where there is neither an escape nor any possible return. Today is one such day. It is partly the irresolute and moody weather, partly the throbbing migraine and mostly me. By which I mean there is always an unsightly, unreasonable side of me that often brings on my own doom - one that is difficult to let go or do away with. Hence, sloshed with tea, Jagjit Singh and an ice compress balanced precariously on my head, I write this.

First about the rogue migraine, 'the Beast' as I love to call it. This was a fragment that I had recently written on another day of attack:

"There was nothing she could do now. Absolutely nothing. The Beast had begun its fortnightly prowl, slowly pounding its way ahead, choosing its favourite place of attack. Her sanity. Desperately, she clung on to it, the last shreds of it. What awakened it this time? May be her mind, that keeps ticking like a tireless time bomb day and night. Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock. Or was it Red Dragon? Why must she watch it when she has absolutely no control over her peeping, pestering imagination? But there's Ralph Fiennes, that dear, dear man. How achingly beautiful his eyes are. Even when a bloodcurdling psychopath! Argh!! The Beast is finally there, waiting to unleash its savage strength. She could feel the thud of its giant, heavy paws that shook her like a wretched tree in a storm. There, the incessant hammering starts. BOOM!"

Then there are these thoughts that are of no particular dimension or consequence and therefore deserve no mention. Or are they just the always-to-be-blamed hormones, at their moody best? Or is it the near death of summer in Seattle that threatens me so? Whatever it is, I'm going to sing the last of my rants here. A haunting ghazal written by Ali Sardar Zafri and sung by Jagjit Singh that has been playing over and over again for the last hour or so. It has no choice, poor thing, being the only track on the playlist.

"Mere darwaaze se ab chand ko ruksat kar do

Saath aaya hai tumhaare jo tumhaare ghar se

Apne maathe se hata do yeh chamakta hua taj

Phenk do jism se kirnon ka sunehre zewar

Tum hi tanha mere ghamkhaane mein aa sakti ho

Ek muddat se tumhaare hi liye rakha hai

Mere jalte hue seene ka dehakta hua chand."

I have attempted a rough translation of the lines for my non-Urdu readers (if any!):

Bid farewell to the moon from my doors,

That which you brought with you from your home.

Remove that glittering crown from your head,

Strip your body of the golden jewels.

Only you, alone, are welcome into my house of misery -

For ages I have kept a moon blazing in my burning heart, for you.

A whiff of nostalgia

Strange, how a certain place grows on us and then goes on to become a part of us, of the intricate web of 'who I am'. Most of the times this gossamer bond is formed due to pleasant people who go on to make sunshine memories. But there have been occasions when the tidings were a little rough. Still, I find myself so much tethered to that place, to its lanes and bylanes, to every one of its facade. A strange sense of sadness and loss overcomes me while leaving a certain place, even if the stay would not have been of such a conclusive duration that would define my emotions. It is not the coming change that worries me, but the leaving behind, the little somethings that I shall no more be able to hold as a part of my everyday life bothers me. There is always some bit of memory or a piece of my surrounding that I cling on to dearly as a remnant, a precious fossil of all these places.
A few days back I stumbled upon a quote by the French poet Anatole France which did help me to understand my predicament to a great extent: "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." And so I yearn for this dead life, one that has long shut its doors on me.

Most of the times I nurse my nostalgia with a characteristic scent of these dead lives. I have read somewhere that this tendency to associate memories with a definitive smell is called associative nostalgia. Isn't it strange how we decide to preserve certain memories in the backstreet of our minds? The world may not care twopence about them, but you do. I remember my childhood in so many ways - the festive air swollen with incense and the latest Hindi film songs during the pujas, the comforting scent of Nivea creme which used to come in a round blue tin box back then, the smell of old, yellowed books in Bapa's room. My inexperienced hostel days in Bhubaneswar take me back to the evening summer breeze that made its way through the windows to my study table where I would be fiddling with the bulk of A History of English Literature, knowing not what to do with the scores of literary heavyweights mentioned in there. Sometimes the graduation days also remind me of the fresh roasted bhutta (corn on the cob) in the rainy evenings or the citrus Elle 18 perfume which I loved to wear to my morning Honours classes. When I remember my days in Hyderabad, the city of love for me, I get a whiff of the old world charm from the ittar vendors along side the bylanes of Charminar. At other times the addictive elaichi chai (cardamom tea) of the university canteen does the trick. It is as if I live and relive these fond moments in these aromas, hence making them immortal and exclusively mine. The mention of Seattle brings back the characteristic dewy, dreamy scent of rain and pines. Our apartment in Redmond, the little Microsoft city neighbouring Seattle, reminds me of freshly mowed grass and a dish washing soap of water lily and jasmine fragrance. The minimal amount of time that we spent in the bay area of California contributes to my nostalgia bank as well. I would often admire the intimidatingly beautiful redwood trees during my solitary evening walks, and later would try to recollect their woody smell.

Jagjit Singh, with his voluminous range of ghazals that perfect such sombre moods has sung the most apt lines on the lingering fragrance of memories:

Shaam mehke tere tassawur se,

Shaam ke baad phir saher mehke...

(The evening is fragrant with your thoughts,

After the evening, the dawn is fragrant as well...)