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..