Audience soak in Urdu poetry at Shaam-e-ghazal

Nagpur: Warm memories and soul singeing poetry pushed away the winter chill on Sunday evening at Deshpande Hall. The family of Dr Vinay Waikar, a patron of Urdu language and ghazals, had collaborated with Saptak to present Shaam- e-Ghazal. Raising the bar for the event were two acclaimed musicians, Rahul Deshpande and Priyanka Barve, presenting their first ever ghazal show in Nagpur.
This was the seventh edition of a musical programme which the Waikars present every year in the city in memory of Dr Waikar.

Giving details of the planning that went into it, Amit Waikar said, “This particular concert has been in the making for the past nine months. I met Rahul at Shanghai where I presented him Aaina-e-Ghazal, a book written by my father and told him about the events we hold in his memory.” Rahul cited ghazals as his first love and agreed to do a programme in Nagpur, Amit informed.

“Dr Waikar was a huge fan of my grandfather Vasantrao Deshpande, who was very fond of this genre as he had spent his early years in Lahore and had a long association with Begum Akthar,” Rahul Deshpande said. He added, “Nagpur is like a home to me and I decided that I should present my first ghazal event here.”

Starting off with Ghalib’s ‘Dil e naadan thujhe hua kya hai’, Rahul followed it with Faiz’s ‘Gulon main rang bhare’ and warmed up with ‘Aaye kuch abra’, Adim Hashmi’s ‘Fasile aise bhi hongey’, and Ahmad Faraz’s ‘Ye alam shauq ka’. His nuanced singing, well worked upon diction and leisurely pace put the audience in a mood to enjoy deep poetry and its lilting presentation.

Priyanka Barve, who has been trained by Ravindra Date in ghazal singing, excelled with ‘Marize ishq ka kya hai’, and duets ‘Dayaar-e-dil’ and Naseer Kazmi’s ‘Dil dhadak ne ke sabab yaad aye’ with Rahul. Her singing had soul, expression and emotion which made for a heady cocktail so essential for the listener to absorb the poetry. The duo was accompanied by skilled musicians on dholak, guitar, keyboard, tabla and harmonium, who added melody and soothing charm to the ghazals.

Amit Waikar’s anchoring was well researched, as he gave the audience an insight into different styles of writing ghazals and a glimpse of how the poets of India and Pakistan wrote shayari.