Sanget

Sanget

It was one of those beautiful spring evenings in the Big Apple and everything seemed perfect except my plan for the rest of the evening. I was supposed to stay indoors for the rest of the day until I thought about my class and my music assignment. One thing I was sure about and that I had to be in a concert somewhere, a musical evening which would later help me write my essay for class.

I got my hands on the New York Times and started my search, finding a concert or show in Broadway is never a problem, the problem lay in finding the right show and how to make it there, after constantly struggling and locating the right show I made it to the venue.

On the outside it felt like I was standing in line for a Rolling stone concert but as soon I was able to get a ticket and get inside, the atmosphere took a big U turn. This wasn’t a regular concert but a gorgeous light classical Indian music evening. I knew my money hadn’t gone wasted and this would provide me with a great opportunity to witness music from another side of the world and would also enable to complete my essay. At the Arch where this was taking place, the atmosphere inside was perfectly designed to make all the audience feel like they were sitting in India in the eighteenth century.

The singer was the popular whatever singh who is very prominent in India and especially in the Indian film industry for his great work, he grew up speaking English, but later learned Urdu and has become an excellent singer of the short, romantic poetry singing known as Ghazal. His serpentine voice has an astounding range and the best part about his music is how he incorporates western sounds with the eastern traditional tabla and other Indian instruments.

In the Indian Classical music tradition, the human voice is regarded as the most precious and subtlest of all instruments, designed, as it is, to praise the creator with music in what is known in India as the Language of God. Some are gifted with this special power of devotion.

Before the concert started, the lights in the hall were dimmed and the audience was asked to switch off their cell phones and pagers, although the crowd consisted of people mostly in their forties and fifties I did not for one minute feel I was too young to be there.

The first part of the concert was so meditative that I fell into a lovely state: swaying in my low chair, breathing soft and even and enjoying the trance the classical music was taking me into, for a while I felt like the singer and his associates were just magicians who had mastered the art of soft classic music and knew how to use it in the right way.

The singer at first started with singing songs from the ancient Sufi times ,the only advantage I had to other audience way over my age was that I understood the language the singer was using while they had no clue about it ,at first he concentrated on the epic stories which have been made into songs now ,he was determined to sing it in such a melody that even though others around me could not understand what he was saying but there was no doubt that they were thoroughly enjoying the way he was mixing and blending the harmonium and tabla with his voice.

Accompanied on tabla was Pundit Swapan Chaudhuri, and Pandit Ramesh Misra, one of India's finest sarangi players, and on tambura was Carolyn Tewari. The singer’s voice was rich and caressing, light yet full, and brought out all the subtle pleasures of calmness, serenity and peacefulness.

Although his other team members were not singing, they kept swinging their heads and making sure their instruments were constantly being balanced with his tone. At many of times it felt like his other band members were a part of him and that his music was incomplete without them but actually in India, the way of music is played is different and it is common to find the vocalist being the jack of all trades. Most