http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p2dRkVURQM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg9b5eEUwtE

Then from comments I came to know that she had suffered a cardiac arrest attack and was in hospital. Since then there used to be an on and off update about her health through twitter or news. Yesterday was the unfortunate day when she lost the fight and said goodbye to this world. Life seems to be so unfair at times. Such a brilliant, intelligent kid and she had to go from this world at the age of 16. But  strange are the ways of God. We are the mere audience.

May her soul rest in peace. You were a brilliant kid Arfa and will remain an inspiration for many others.

…so another year is gone and we are welcoming the new year 2012. In most parts of the world, the first sun of 2012 has already risen. 2011 was an year of mixed emotions. Along with the personal & professional achievements & happiness, this year snatched from us legends like Jagjit Singh & many others. Also this year was marked with political turbulence in many parts of the world. Many innocent lives were lost.

In India, we saw a big change when people came on the streets to challenge the way governance was being done. It sparked a ray of hope of some betterment. Hope 2012 brings even more, people get their long lost rights and the administrators are held accountable for the goof ups that have become so frequent.

For me, on the blogging front it was a lazy year; could write very few posts. I will try to be more frequent in blogging in the new year 2012.

I am ending this post on a sad note with this song by Legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksEm1QcABFY

I hope the answer to the question asked in the song is 2012. Hope it marks the end of pain & suffering of the innocents in this world. Hope everyone gets justice.

A very very happy and prosperous new year to you and your loved ones. Hope you achieve all that you ever desired for. Stay blessed !

(Literal translation is: Who can dare tell God that do it like this, not like that ?)

How truly someone has put it in just a few words.

A very very sad day for music and the music lovers. The “one man army”, the captain of Indian Ghazal singing Jagjit Singh is no more. And even sadder is the thing that there is no-one to carry forward his legacy. His untimely demise marks the end of an era in the Indian music. There is no one like him, of the same status, same repute. In our sub continent also, there are very few names; Mehdi Hasan already stopped singing due to his health. At this moment the singing in 2 countries was being headed by Ghulam Ali & Jagjit Singh and one of them just left us. I can’t describe in words what a tremendous loss it is. Only a month back, we saw him perform live with Ghulam Ali and I was not at all happy with his performance and complained a lot about it. Because I wanted him to sing the classics he created. I feel lucky to have seen him perform live thrice in my life. I can’t just accept that he is no more with us.

Whose live show we are gonna attend now ?

Who will sing ghazals like Jagjit Singh ?

Posting some of my most favourite ghazals sung by him. Let us remember our hero and pray for the peace of his soul. Rest in Peace Mr Jagjit Singh !

agar hum kahein aur woh muskara dein

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qGNwdLVpt8

suntay hain ke mil jati hai

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2-dzGfcZbA

sar jhukaoge to pathar bhi devta ho jayega

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7mJ44aYjvo

kabhi yun bhi to ho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuzZ5rXw6DE

and

now comes the sad part

Jagjit Singh was totally disappointing. It was nothing more than playing a CD. He sang some idiotic ghazals that were sung in some movies. He almost didn’t speak anything, no interaction with the audience; just kept on singing one ghazal after another. By the time he was going to finish, it became bit ok but just a “bit”.

Then Jagjit Singh called Ghulam Ali on stage again and they started with a jugalbandi on Ghulam Ali’s lag gaye nain avede. One guy from Jagjit Singh’s orcehstra and then another one from Ghulam Ali’s orchestra also joined. That was totally awesome. Then they went on to sing a classical composition (I can’t recall the lyrics) and it was amazing too ! And that was the end of the show.

Ghulam Ali totally stole the show and Jagjit Singh was totally, absolutely disappointing and I don’t think I will ever go to watch Jagjit Singh again. It was totally a lifeless singing.  And by the way why doesn’t he use a mic with harmonium ? So that harmonium’s sound is not heard ? #FAIL

]]> http://amardeepsidhu.com/personal/2011/09/ghulam-ali-jagjit-singh-live-in-concert/feed/ 25 http://amardeepsidhu.com/personal/2010/12/kolkata-day-4/ http://amardeepsidhu.com/personal/2010/12/kolkata-day-4/#comments Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:47:41 +0000 Sidhu http://amardeepsidhu.com/personal/?p=517 Oh man day 4 is here but not much stuff to talk about. So today it is gonna be short and sweet

Well, in this new guest house I didn’t wake up too early. There was less light and almost no chirping of birds. Day started well with DD1 playing an interview with Gulzar saab. Also, the guys prepared a real good breakfast; aalu poori. So after filling my tummy properly I left for the office and was there in around 20 minutes. It was a wet day in Kolkata and was drizzling almost for the whole day. I continued with the regular dose of tea every 3 hours . In such a weather tea becomes even more important .

In the evening, I had planned to meet an old friend. He planned for a dinner at Arsalan, a very famous Mughlai restaurant. We had some kebabs & special biryani in the dinner. His house was pretty far from the place we had dinner at. So he needed to leave for home in time. For me also, it was the time to catch a taxi and get back to the guest house. It was great catching up with him after long time.

So that is the gist of what I did on Day 4 in Kolkata

Like yesterday, today again I was up at 6. Killed some more time in bed and finally got up at 7. It was a holiday for me so there was plenty of time for some site seeing. Started calling few contacts but nothing worked out. One dude, who I thought was here, had already gone back to Delhi. Another friend was busy in some house hold stuff (he is married actually ). So I thought about planning something on my own. There were few good places that I could visit and I had to meet one of my ex manager and a good friend too. He is getting married on 10^th of this month. I probably won’t be able to attend the marriage so it was the best time to meet him. So I asked the guest house guys to book a cab for me. The cab was there in an hour. I had my breakfast and left for the city. Visited a mall to buy a gift and then left for Victoria Memorial. If you aren’t aware what it is, Wiki comes to rescue

The Victoria Memorial, officially the Victoria Memorial Hall, is a memorial building dedicated to Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India, which is located in Kolkata, India – the capital of West Bengal and a former capital of British India. It currently serves as a museum and a tourist attraction. It is an autonomous organization within the Government of India’s Ministry of Culture.

It is a really beautiful example of architectural excellence. There was lot of interesting stuff related to history; old pictures, weapons and other information displayed as text or paintings. I spent more than an hour over there enjoying the old beauty. After that I had a glimpse of Hugli bridge,  Howrah bridge, High Court, Raj Bhawan and few other places.

Finally I left to meet my friend. He was staying at his in laws house for preparation of some music item he needs to do before marriage .  It was really nice to see him after so long; may be 2-3 years, I think. Had some Bengali sweets there and left for the guest house.

The guest house guys had already told me that they will be shifting me to a new guest house. So I packed my bags and left for the new guest house. So here I am writing this post . Just like any other new place, feeling bit strange here. Another issue is that no set top box with TV, they have got some local cable rather. So not many Hindi/Punjabi channels here . Lets see how the coming three days go. I seriously hope that I will be writing day 4 as well .

& oh yes it is feeling bit cold here. Don’t know why. May be it is some other part of the city .

I had to go to workplace by 12 noon so I had plenty of free time. They prepared aalu paranthas in the breakfast but not so good, totally understandable though. Preparing good paranthas is kinda North Indians’ patent . Anyway a cup of tea can always fill the gaps.  So had my breakfast and tea and left for workplace by 11 or so. It was hardly 4 kms so reached there by 11:30.

Change of weather has its shot and nose has started running a bit. Also those guys have their ACs switched on in the office, so it was even more troubling for me. To reduce the bad effects, I kept on taking regular doses of tea from a khokha outside . After a suggestion from a colleague, I also tried a cake from the same khokha and it was really good.

For some time there was nothing much to do and I was sitting kinda idle. So I thought why not look for a Café Coffee Day around. Well, I searched in Google maps in my iPhone and it showed the nearest one, some 300 meters away. Before leaving for CCD, I had an egg roll (for just Rs 10…if you have seen the rates in some posh areas in Delhi, it would sound inexpensive for sure) from a shop nearby and it was real good one. So to look for CCD, I started following the directions given by Google maps. Luck gods were not happy, I tried for 15-20 minutes but couldn’t locate where it was. Finally had to come back and had to take tea from the same khokhe wala .

By 6 pm, I was free and left for the guest house by yellow taxi. And oh boy I saw something new about taxis here. When you stop at some red light or in some traffic jam, their meter starts counting the wait time and the charges are added for the time you spend waiting. This is not the case in Delhi. Also the charging meter of these yellow taxis is bit complicated one. Wikitravel says:

The fare is 2 times plus Rs 2 the reading of the meter. The Meter starts from Rs. 10, which means Rs. 22 actually.

Now I don’t know what the heck is this. Nose is running so not able to calculate what exactly they want? Why can’t they bloody set their meters to show the actual fare?

The last thing “dinner” for which we all are fighting …these guys were serving fish & rice that I was in no mood to have. So I went out, walked half a km and found a Punjabi dhaba where I could have daal roti. The food was good and not very expensive too. After enjoying the dinner & the evening walk here I am at my guest house.

Almost all the free time, I have been Facebook’ing. So much on Facebook that I am kinda fed up of it now. I think, need to stay away from it for some time. Or I shall not touch it after getting back to Delhi.

Tomorrow I am totally free. Let us see if I can utilize it for some site seeing or it also gets dedicated to bloody Facebook .

Good night guys…

Finally reached the airport in time and was able to check in, get security check done and board the flight, everything in time. No breakfast was included in the ticket price. I thought about having a tea. Well ordered that and man believe me…it was the most pathetic tea I had in months.

And early morning flights are full of laziness. People hardly talk, most of them are half asleep . I too, after some time put on my earphones and played tumhe dillagi bhool jani paregi. What a relief! Overall the flight was pretty good. The take off was real smooth but landing was bit crappy. The plane touched the ground like a stone and the pilot applied the brakes as if plane was going to fall off some planet’s corner . Well, investigating the wrong area probably, so should leave it here.

I got my luggage and started waiting for the taxi. It took around one hour or so to reach the workplace at Park Street and spent the whole day there. I had no breakfast so was eagerly waiting for the lunch time. Everyone told me that Park Street is a real good area and there should be many good eating joints. There was one called Shiraaz nearby and I enjoyed bhuna chicken & afghani naan . In the evening after getting free, I had a round of Park Street but it looked like bit closed. Also being alone, it was not much fun. Finally landed at the guest house and had good cup of tea which really helped in giving the body the much needed energy. Had that cup been not there, this post would never come .

Few things that attracted eyes; traffic situation is almost same as Delhi, lots of time gets wasted due to traffic jams. Traffic police and waiters wear white color uniform, totally unfit for the kind of job they do. Also the yellow taxis are all around, somewhat like autos in Delhi. To a bit of my surprise, pretty good number of people speak and understand reasonably good Hindi.

So that was the story of the whole day. Just had my dinner and these guys made really good daal, aalu gobhi & roti. He asked for the trademark fish n rice but I am feeling bit cold’ish so decided to settle for standard daal roti & the dinner was real good.

Enough for day 1, I think and now the time to end this post. Let us see if there comes any part 2, 3 or so .

And oh yes, any suggestions for good places to visit in Kolkata are welcome

BTW Calcutta was such a beautiful name. Why did the change it to Kolkata. May be due to the Ooo’ization Bengalis do of everything (no offence intended).