Renowned ghazal singer Ghulam Ali casts a spell on Amdavadi audience during the Times Ahmedabad Festival at Vastrapur Lake on Saturday 

Mention Ghulam Ali, his voice and words seem to rise afar, waft and draw closer to you, enter your most intimate world and touch the innermost cords. The whole being grows vibrant. It’s a kind of experience poets are known to create.

Times’ announcement that ‘the emperor of ghazals’ was coming to Ahmedabad as part of its festival had caused ‘dil mein ek lahar si’ to rise. An hour before the concert there was a long serpentine queue right on roads and his fans were still pouring in an hour after it started.
The ambience at the Vastrapur Lake was just right. ‘Hemant’, the precursor to ‘Shishir’, has set in.

So the air was crisp, the sky blue. A splash of colour littered the ‘gaddi’ seats on the lawns smelling fresh.

A wave of mild thrill, followed by an expectant hush, spread when finally the elegance arrived – elegance of the person that Ghulam Ali is. Agile, wearing a smile, ever green, with his recognizable shawl spread on shoulders. Everyone waited to experience ‘live’ the elegance of his voice. A mere ‘humm…’ in his familiar ‘mandra’ is greeted with cheers and a clap. ‘Na jhukao nazar kahin raat dhal na jay …’ he sings. The listeners, in raptures, seem to identify with every word, every feeling. He fondles and cuddles them all with words.

The beauty of a ghazal couplet is in the tension it creates. There is separation. Yet there is longing. The love being passionately expressed might go unreturned. Yet the ‘nayak’ loves the ‘nayika’. A good ghazal singer expresses with delicate nuances this fine feeling and the tension of the situation. Ghazal is a literary form and ghazal singing is no pop music. A cultivated taste helps one appreciate how Ghulam Ali is different.

‘Chup ke chup ke raat din …’ has couplets of simple words of this kind. “If we are lucky,” a perceptive listener had earlier whispered, “we would get to hear some of those fifty couplets that are not recorded.” And Ghulam Ali did sing them! Getting the listeners to understand the nuances, he renders ‘dil mein ek lahar si’ in mesmerizingly varying ‘aavartan’s. He goes on from one ghazal to another, each interspersed with classical ‘tookada’s and the listeners keep lustily cheering him.

A thrilling experience. A legendary voice that knows no borders. A voice that recognizes no age. The enviable audience response was to be seen to be believed. The young ones too seemed to be lost in the music. Ghulam Ali cuts across generations.

 Courtesy: Times Event

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