the lady sings the blues

a fellow blogger mentioned his favorites pieces of music and farida khanum and i don't know why but i have been subconsiously humming 'chaand niklay kisee janib' for the past few days

i have always had her ghazal in my room but three years ago i went to the beautiful mohatta palace to watch and hear her live and she was breath taking

after the obligatory aadaab even before she got settled on stage, she did a little riaz alaap and this unwinding on her part before the performance was mesmerizing, she is more than 70 and she can not only still carry the tune but take you to a level that only the very best live performance can

it was an unusually chilly and windy karachi night but the lady dressed in a silk orange sari looked magestic and magical and undettered by the winter chill and her classy act ended with 'aaj janay kee zid na karoo', a testimony to the devotion that her fans showered on her, most of them stayed to hear her finale ghazal way past 3am

my wife made a remark that the saarangi nawaz was so old that he looked like a corpse, we learned in the morning that he actually died when the mehfil was over. i have asked her not to let people know about her deadly sense of humor

earlier this year, i missed her appearance at the All Pakistan Music Conference where she was asked to sing by President Musharaf at the Hindu Gymkhana at the annual conference, we hear that Mush is an ardent fan. Good for him and good for the country that the rulers are now patrons of the arts especially music

there is always place in the mind that keeps on humming a ghazal by the legendary farida khanum at the end of a hard day when you have screwed up real bad, a ghazal that goes

'kaheeyay kaheeyay mujhay buraa kaheeyay' (by all means, go ahead and say that i am the one to blame)