The wonderful angel that is..Tina Sani!!

What a voice..What a person..It's true that music transcends boundaries..It's true that the greatest music is the one that emanates straight from the heart..

Hope and Healing was the theme of the performance..It's a tough job doing that when you are performing Ghazals..Ghazals which speak of the pain of loss in love..But Ghazals also speak of the pleasure in that suffering..and how the loss makes that love even more pristine and divine..Tina Sani's effort was to soothe the wounds and heal our souls..She did a fabulous job and managed to stitch together a really fine balancing act between anguish and ecstasy with her mix of nazms, ghazals and little anecdotes..

She is passionate about her singing..that shows in the way she performs..She completely immerses herself in the lyrics..It's like she wants the audience to listen to what she has to say and feel her emotions..Her gestures and expressions are witty, naughty and loud all at once..She has a voice that reaches you and is reflected back to her..and she basks marvellously in the glory of that acceptance from her listeners..

Semi-classical was never my cup of tea..She surely has changed that perception for good..Her love for the nazms and the shayari of 'Faiz Ahmed Faiz' is so deep that its inspiring..She does amazing justice as well by lending her silken voice to them..

Two days back I had not even known about someone by the name of Tina Sani..about ghazals like "Bahar Aayi", "Ab Toh Ghabra Ke", "Dasht-e-Tanhai" and the likes..When I watched the video of her performance on PTV way back in the 80's something just told me that she was unlike a traditional Ghazal singer..She has a little more flair than others, an unusually casual demeanor about herself..But most strikingly what she has is a need to connect with her audience..She wants the one's hearing her to respond..to hear what she wants to say..and to feel it..

During the entire concert one thought kept coming back to me..She never seemed to have come from a different country..neither did the absolutely brilliantly talented folks in her team on instruments..As she confessed during the show, the guy on the Tabla has been playing with her for the past 30 years..and that his presence itself was comforting enough for her..They were all from Pakistan..and they did not, even for a moment, seemed to be any less an Indian..In her own words.."We human beings keep on experimenting with everything..those experiments which fail are forgotten in the due course of time..the problem is that things which are forgotten are very easily repeated..It's only the message of love that artists like us carry along..and it's a pleasure to be in this beautiful land of yours"..Quite fascinating what wonders a mixture of philosophy and music can achieve..She and her crew were received with a generous applause at that and a standing ovation at the end of the show..

She sang a Deccan Nazm and Kabir's "Duniya Darshan Ka Mela" on one hand and "Mori Araj Suno" and "Nawai Ney" on the other hand with equal passion and fervor..That she wanted people to understand her message was obvious in the fact that she kept breaking her performances in the middle to explain in Hindi and more often in English what she was about to sing..and the two words that she used most in those explanations were 'beautiful' and 'love'..Truly the sign of a pure heart and a pristine soul..As she later confessed that she generally doesn't do that..but this was an audience in wrong of the two Hyderabads..She also added something which moved us all.."Sabse badi gawahi toh dil hi deta hai" (It's the heart that gives the best testimony)..

Tina aapa aapka tah-e-dil se shukriya!! No words can describe what a pleasure it was to be able to watch you perform..It truly was a magical night and an unforgettable gig..I would have to admit though that it was your inner beauty that struck me the most..You are a gentle soul and a genuinely lovely person..I look forward to listening much more from you in future..

Irrational Objectivity!!

It's back and stronger than ever,

Like the last few embers of a long doused fire.

This wave with its crests and troughs,

In the endless ocean of a sea.

Here now and gone tomorrow,

As ephemeral as it gets.

Your absence is your existence,

As gorgeous as it gets.

It's so dull and so bland,

It's almost a little spicy.

It's so real and so magical,

It's almost a little archaic.

This road less traveled,

Seems a little too crowded.

All it needed was someone,

A little more exquisite.

Rationality is the reason,

Behind this inanity.

An intent so logical,

It almost borders insanity.

The end of the Golden Silence..and we are back !!

Silence is highly underrated. Silence makes some people go insane, makes others numb. But the most common reaction to silence is anger and helplessness. Not many people in this world can be comfortable with silence. The lack of sound around them drives them mad. They are in constant search of food for their ears and their brains as long as they are awake, and probably even in their sleep. Be silent and you'd experience the whole spectrum of emotions from a single living being. Try it on more, and you'd have the most enriching life of them all.

Silence, they say, speaks louder than words. The most interesting conversations that you can have are the one's that really don't involve any oration. You can know that you know someone special when silence becomes comfortable. When silence doesn't have to be interrupted by your voice. When your eyes talk and the mind understands.

The power of speech is probably the greatest asset that human beings have. It solely distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom, who seemingly have no way to converse, apart from their actions. For that exact same reason, an ability so strong and so powerful, should be used wisely. Words, once said, can never be taken back. Think twice before you speak, because you might end up losing more than what you could ever gain.

There is nothing sweeter than a healthy relationship with a person. Analogically speaking, there is nothing more bitter than a relationship gone bad. It just takes you from one extreme of sadness to the next without ever giving you the peace of mind that you deserve. It's like quicksand wherein, the more you try to come out, the more you sink into it. It's worse actually, because you cannot ask for help from anyone, cause no one's got the bloody time !!

Relationships, they say, are based on communication. Two people can never think alike, let alone be alike. No one in this world is the same as the other. That is why we are all individuals first. Communication forms that base of the understanding that you develop with another human being. Little do they know, that greater forces in nature, far beyond our comprehensive capabilities, are at play in bringing two people closer and even at splitting the deepest of connections. We are just tiny creatures in this wide wide universe, trying to comprehend the meaning of our existence and trying to put anything that we cannot comprehend into tiny little axioms that no one can ever prove and nobody ever questions.

The most important thing to realize is that it's our existence in itself is the most significant fact. Anything that has happened before us or is going to happen after us is totally immaterial. We can live with anything that was not there before we were born, and we can live with anything that was not there after we were born. Speech being one of them. Just like a mother can understand an infant's emotion without any conversation, so can we. It's more important to have that awareness and that connection with a person to understand him, than any other sound or action possible.

So ladies and gentlemen. Keep your mouth shut and let your eyes talk !!