It was a pleasant journey into the world of ghazals. The Saptaparni amphitheatre provided the right ambience and the elite audience were thrilled. Mala Bararia's melodies were like pearls out of the sea. Her style of singing a ghazal in classical raag, briefing her audience about the same by picking up a popular film song in the same raag to enable us to glean the nuances, was very educative and equally enjoyable.
In homage to Satya Saibaba, she opened her recital with a touching mukda which extoled the spiritual guru in the most meaningful terms tum aasha, vishwas hamaari. Yaman is a favourite with many, so the singer made it a point to render two most beautiful pieces in this raag. A sample of Yaman in jab deep jale aana made the audience go into raptures. So was the ghazal, more kaanha jo aaye palat ke in the lines of the famous, more panghat pe nandlaal from the great Hindi classical of all times Mughal-e-Azam . A bandish from the legendary Bimal Roy's film, kaali ghata chaye created waves as Mala in the sweetest of tones rendered chand maqdam hai, aasman chup hai .
Raag Madhuvanthi sounded as lovely as its name when the ghazal dilo mey aag labo par gulaab rakhte hai poured out of Mala's emotive voice. Sampling it with rasme ulfath nibhaye she touched the soul of the raag which in turn melted our summer burnt hearts.
She went on to regale her music intoxicated listeners with Malhar through a kalaam-ghataye chaaye hai, saagar utha penned by a Hyderabadi poet. This was juxtaposed with gham ka khazana tera bhi hai, mera bhi as also with a misr Malhar in bol re papihara .
The ‘eye' metaphor ghazal was mind-boggling in its romantic allusions rendered in the most controlled tones by Mala. Un aakhon ka aalam, gulaabi, gulaabi had myriad ways of describing the eye, the vision, the look, the expression and so on. The singer literally pictured the verses which stood stark in front of our eyes!
Kudos to Mala for bringing home the glory of the ghazal in its true form and enabling her audience to savour and enjoy her repertoire. The tabla and violin artistes complemented Mala's rendition.
The evening of ghazals was conducted by the Music Appreciation Group in collaboration with the ICCR.
