Now, I Am A Fan Of Ustaad Rashid Khan!

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Ustaad Rashid Khan

We had been attending 'Naad Ninaad' concerts for the past few years now.  The Hindu(news paper) is sponsoring them and it comes in November.  This year too we went to Chennai's famous Music Academy to hear the music. And loved it.  Thanks goes to The Hindu!

We, i.e. our family heard about Rashid Khan (The name is pronounced as Raashid and not Rashid!) in the very old (1998)Saregama, a musical Reality programme anchored by Sonu Nigam. Many stalwarts from Hindi Film music industry and our Hindustani Classical music stalwarts participated as judges.  Many following episodes showed them singing in front of India Gate and other prominent places and we came to know about many famous Hindustani music singers then.  One of them was Ustaad Rashid Khan.  I still remember him singing in that programme.  No, I hadn't heard about him before that.  We, South Indians are involved with Carnatic music than Hindustani music then.  Now, the atmosphere is changing.  Every year we get to hear many Hindustani concerts in our famous Music season, in Chennai, in November and December!  This concert was houseful till the end, i.e. 9.30 pm! Mostly people start leaving the hall by 9 pm! Both Ustaad Shahid Parvez Khan and Ustaad Rashid Khan made us sit glued to our seat till the end! The sitar played by Ustaad Shahid Parvez Khan was divine.  I will write about him also sometime!

Please have a look at this video first.  This is just a sample.  He expanded this song elaborately, with a touch of pure classical in the end at the concert.  This one is mild, ghazal type.  Really, melodious:



Ustaad Rashid Khan (Wiki says), born on 1st July, 1996, belongs to the Rampur Sahaswan Gharana and is the great grandson of the founder Inaayat Hussain Khan.  Every gharana has got unique type of singing Hindustani music.  But Rashid Khan didn't just stick to his gharana, though he got trained in that, adopted many other gharana styles like Amir Khan's and Bhimsen Joshi's.
He is married to Joyeeta Bose, from the family of Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose.  (The comment section in the 'yaad piya ki video gave some details). 

This information is for serious Hindustani music fans:

His renderings stand out for the emotional overtones in his melodic elaboration. He says: "The emotional content may be in the alaap, sometimes while singing the bandish, or while giving expression to the meaning of the lyrics." This brings a touch of modernity to his style, as compared to the older maestros, who tended to place greater emphasis on impressive technique and skillful execution of difficult passages.

Rashid Khan has also experimented with fusing pure Hindustani music with lighter musical genres, e.g. in the Sufi fusion recording Naina Piya Se (songs of Amir Khusro), or in experimental concerts with western instrumentalist Louis Banks.


Rashid Khan gave his first concert at age eleven, and the following year, 1978, he performed at an ITC concert in Delhi. In April 1980, when Nissar Hussain Khan (his maternal grand uncle from who he was learning music) moved to the ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Calcutta, Rashid Khan also joined the academy at the age of 14. By 1994, he was acknowledged as a musician (a formal process) at the academy.

Wiki says:  Pandit Bhimsen Joshi once remarked that Rashid Khan was the "assurance for the future of Indian vocal music".He was awarded the Padma Shri as well as the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2006.

You can know more about him in his interview programme in Rajya Sabha TV.

Shaksiyat Rajya Sabha programme:




This is his typical classical singing.  He sang this at the concert. Click here: Awesome rendition!

He has got two daughters and a son, who also have started giving concerts.  He has done playback singing in some movies like Jagjit Singh and his voice is melodious and soft in them. This is one:

From the movie 'Jab we met':




I used to hear just Jagjit Singh's ghazals all these days.  Now, Rashid Khan will also become my favourite! Never knew about him this much.  This concert has introduced me to an incredible, unique voice!

The video which is given below shows my favourite Carnatic singer Bombay Jayashree and now my favourite Hindustani singer, Ustaad Rashid Khan in a 'different' type of music, is it fusion...well, I liked it! You too will love this! Over to Coke studio:

Waiting...A Beautifully Made Movie!

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I seem to be writing movie reviews often nowadays! Well...I seem to watch good movies often nowadays! I am enjoying our retired, relaxed life now! Think of the positive things in life...take life as it comes! Nothing can be controlled! Whatever happens, happens for good....well, preaching ends here!

I had been planning to watch this movie for a long time now...I had read reviews about how well Naseeruddin Shaw and Kalki Koechlin had acted in this movie.

The story of the movie can be written in two lines but the way it is picturized is beautiful...

Shiv Natraj (Naseeruddin Shaw) is a very senior psychology professor, who is taking care of his comatose wife Pankaja (Suhasini Manirathnam) in a Cochin hi-fi hospital. He has sort of settled in his routine of finishing his work at home and coming to the hospital to sit beside his wife who had been in the hospital for the past 8 months.  He holds her hand and talks to her, reads to her every day.  He is friendly with the nurses (a nurse brings him food from home everyday) and doctors.

Then comes Tara Kapoor Deshpande (Kalki Koechlin) who was a recently married young advertising agent whose husband met with an accident at Cochin, now in the ICU with a severe brain injury.

Both of them are waiting in the hospital for their spouses' recovery. They meet often and come closer while consoling each other.  Both of them love their spouses (Naseer's had been a 40 years of happy marriage and Kalki loved her short term husband). 

Their generation gap is shown beautifully...how their thinking is world apart, language, how they look at their lives etc.  Kalki uses the foul words in every sentence and Naseer is a very straight forward, simple man! They come closer inspite of all these diversities.  Naseer is not even familiar with 'Twitter'! Every frame in this movie is well thought of.

I liked the acting of the assistant of Kalki's husband (Rajiv Ravindranath...new to me) and the doctor (Rajat Kapoor).  Both the cases are entirely different and I liked the way the doctor handled both of them!  Rajat also is a good actor.

Naseeruddin Shaw is a veteran actor and I have watched many of his movies.  Kalki, I liked her in 'Margarita with a straw'.

Now, to the trailer of the movie:



This movie is being screened often in TV or you can download too.  If you want to watch a meaningful movie, this is for you!
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Still Alice...This Will Go Into My Memorable Movie List!

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I think it is better to watch the trailer first!



I try to watch movies without reading the gist, or watching the trailers.  So, the story will be a surprise for me! My mind will be blank to enjoy it fully!

This movie, 'Still Alice' is about a middle aged lady, not a very old lady, Alice, stepping into Alzheimer's disease symptoms slowly.  The movie starts with Alice Howland (Julianne Moore...brilliant acting and got an oscar for this film!) jogging in the morning.  She is slim, tall and runs very fast for her age, 50! Comes home, cooks, cleans, takes care of the family of three children and a husband, goes out to work as a professor at Columbia University (as a linguistic professor to be precise) and she is famous there with her students.  While taking the class, she forgets a word here and there.  She becomes tensed up a bit and checks with a Neurological doctor and gets to know that she is in the early onset of Alzheimer's disease...She comes to know that this disease is genetic and she had got it from her father.  She tries to evade the disease by following some mental exercises.  Her whole family is supportive.

Well, I should not write the whole story.  It is a bit tension filled movie.  But Julianne's acting is so brilliant that we forget about coming out of the movie mode by just switching it off! Her physician husband, John Howland, supports/helps her a lot.  She wants her younger daughter who was in theatre, to finish her degree and be stable in her life.  She wants the daughter to be safe when she won't be there to guide her.  She loses her job because she was not able to be focused.

I liked the speech Julianne gave about the disease at the Alzheimers' conference, when she was half way into it.  You must watch the movie to appreciate it.  Many other memorable scenes/stages are there in the movie.

This movie is  based on Lisa Genova's 2007 best selling novel of the same name and is directed by Richard Glatzer and Wah Westmoreland.

This is from imdb 'trivia' section:
Co-director Richard Glatzer, suffers from ALS and can't speak. He directed the film using a text to speech app on an iPad. Both Moore and Stewart dedicated their "Ice Bucket Challenge" to Glatzer. The team couldn't attend the Oscar function where Julianne received her Best Actress award for this movie, because Glatzer was seriously ill and died later.

(Physicist Stephen Hawking suffered from this ailment and I did a post on his movie here!)

This movie and Julianne got many more awards and the list is in wiki. She is beautiful!!

Long back I read a book by Arthur Hailey, 'The final diagnosis' which was about the lives of intern students in a medical hospital.  Every night, after their classes, the students compare the symptoms of the diseases they studied in the class, on their bodies! That was a very good book.  Like that, I was checking myself at some stages in the movie! As you know, I am 'maradhimanni' i.e. Forgetful queen! I forget nearly on an average, 10 times a day, about words, things, incidents etc.  I think after I started writing here, the symptoms are coming down slowly, still, it is there!  I was a bit nervous, watching the movie! Then, I told myself, when I can do mixture (a bit tough!) and so many sweets at home for festivals, I don't think I will step into Alzheimer's that easily!!!  

I liked the ending in the movie!

Watched this in Tata Sky's Le plex channel! Very good movies are being screened there!

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Sangeeth Saritha, Radio Programme, Again!

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As I have already written earlier, I am a fan of radio since my childhood days.  We grew up hearing the radio throughout the day, well... until TV took sometime of the day, later.  Even then, the mornings are exclusively for Vividhbharathi programmes.  I don't listen to FM radio because the presenters shout all the time and too many advertisements.  Vividhbharathi gets minimum advertisements and many are govt. sponsored like 'gobar gas', 'road safety', PM Modi's 'swachch bharath' and other reforms (this is the recent addition!).   Other programmes will be heard randomly without much attention but the 7.30 to 7.45 am programme is THE Sangeeth Saritha.  I love to listen the discussions on Hindustani/Carnatic music...many maestros discuss the raagas, how they are used in film music, different types of taals and many more.  Just to influence ordinary people who are not serious classical music lovers (I am not a serious classical music fan...I love all sorts of music!) mostly they include one film song based on the raaga in discussion.  I have written a couple of posts about this programme earlier and here, they are!    And here!

Normally, in this programme, one series about some subject goes for 10-20 episodes.  Now, I am hearing for the past few days, a programme about different music directors, the way they use particular instruments for songs, some famous classical singers who sang for a couple of movies....etc. etc.  The VIP here now, is Pt.Nithyanand Haldipur who is a famous bansuri/flute player.

Today, he was discussing about Shiv-Hari's (famous santoor player, Pt.Shiv Kumar Sharma and famous flute player, Pt.Hariprasad Chaurasia) contribution to film music. Today, he was talking about one song from film, 'Tere Mere Sapne'
and the song is given below.  He said, 'In those days, RD Burman, SD Burman's son was becoming famous and was very busy recording songs.  SD Burman got the above movie for directing music.  Singers, Latha Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar were fixed. He had shortage of orchestra players.  At that time he came across Shiv-Hari and got an idea.  He asked just the both of them to play for one song.  With just two instruments, Santoor and flute, he finished recording one beautiful song.  I hear just the tabla sound apart from the two instruments in the background.  My favourite song.  Really, SD Burman is a genius.  Now, hear the song.  The lyrics by Neeraj is superb.



Kishore, Latha's voice, Dev Anand, Mumtaz's acting made the song a hit.  The movie also was a hit.  My parents were not happy about us, young girls, watching this movie (adult theme it was, in those days (1971, I think!).  I and my sister went with my cousins to Rajkumari theatre (a complex is there now!) at Pondy Bazaar, Chennai, to watch this movie.  All the songs were good.  A movie was always a hit in those days, if the songs were good!

I had written about SD Burman and RD Burman's music here!

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Our Favourite Musical Programme Now...Voice India Kids!

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Our week end prime time is exclusively for watching &TV programme, 'Voice India Kids'.  The finale is nearing, so all the kids are in perfect form.  This show has become famous for the talented kids and the most talented coaches and judges, Neeti Mohan, playback singer, Shekar Ravjiani, Singer cum music director, Shaan, Singer.  They are coaching the kids very well, we could see the improvement in the kids' singing, every week. 

Remember, Shreya Ghoshal, Arijit Singh, Ganjawala, Anwesha and many other singers are products of reality shows. 

 I love this girl, Shreya Basu's voice! All are very very young...

This girl Priyanshi Srivastava is a strong contender!

Saanvi Shetty is singing here! What a voice!

Wonder who will win....3-4 voices are very good.   Sometimes the children who come 3rd or 4th in the reality shows, become famous later, with good training and dedication.  Shreya Ghoshal participated in Saregama as a small girl, look, where she is now!  Musical reality shows started then.  Sonu Nigam was young and was the favourite anchor of many households, including ours! I had done a post on this subject, long back, here, it is!



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