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How green was the Valley!
Photo:R.V.Moorthy.
Reminiscences of the Valley: singer Munir Ahmed Mir in New Delhi. Photo:R.V.Moorthy.
DAL LAKE, shikaras, rabab, santoor... does it remind you of anything? Kashmir, you surely would say. And what if this heaven on earth with an added advantage of the Melody Queen of Kashmir - Kailash Mehra - is brought alive on stage?
This is how Naghma-e-Kashmir, a song-based programme on Jammu and Kashmir titled "Rhythms and Melodies of Jammu and Kashmir" raised its curtains in New Delhi's Kamani Auditorium this past week.
Organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations in association with Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, the evening was an attempt at "making people from the valley living in Delhi feel at home", as put by an ICCR representative. Well-known artist Naresh Kapooria brought the Valley ambience alive on stage.
Apart from Mehra, well known names from Kashmir like Vijay Kumar Malla, Abdul Rashid Farash, Waheed Jallani, Jahanbara Janbaz, Munir Ahmad Mir and Qaiser Nizami treated the audience with golden old songs of longing for home, the Kashmir problem, Hindu-Muslim unity, Sufi melodies and so on. What made the evening interesting was the region's well-known music composer Pandit Bhajan Sopori bringing before the audience his son Abhay Rustam Sopori as a carrier of the musical legacy. The instrumental ensemble Soz-te-Saz composed and conducted by senior Sopori, added a tinge of nostalgia to the cause. Sopori is also last year's National Award winner for his music composition in the Kashmiri film "Bub".
Says Neeraj Bakshi, an artist from Kashmir now living in Delhi, "For the first time here, I saw so many Kashmiri singers together on one platform. For persons like me who are away from home for more than a decade, it was an emotional, nostalgic journey back home. We have grown up listening to the songs of Kailash Mehra. Watching her perform was a dream come true."
The lovers of Kashmiri music especially liked Mehra's Sufi number "Bedard Daad Channe", Malla's "Luk Yudh Channa" and rabab played by Ghulam Nabi.
RANA SIDDIQUI
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