When I dream of of my dad and our life in that lovely cosmos, a torrent of old and unspecific recollections grab hold of me and I feel more than transformed at once into a respectful god loving kid in the middle of a serene and blissful orb. Gazal was my dad’s alter ego. My dad was mad of Hindustani ragas and thaats. He would abundantly talk about khamaj, bilawal, and kafi, bhairavi and todi, which were all Greek and Latin to me then and now. Ustad Nazakath Ali Khan, Ustad Salamath Ali Khan, Ustad Amanath Ali Khan and Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali khan were a few of his much loved Hindustani singers.
Those were not the days of T.V, Internet, and I-pod etc. His Master’s Voice record players and gramophone records were all that would adorn his dusty wooden table, of which he was proud of, in his youth. He had loved the Hindustani ragas and ghazals flavored with sort of sorrowful and melancholic strains and contents. He would often disintegrate into devastating emotions with tears rolling down his wet eyes during some such recitals. Hindustani ghazals and poetry are said to be mostly imbued with ‘ishq’ and ‘ashq,’ that is, they were complete of love, romance and tears. Might be he had loved madly someone in his youth a "sheereen" an "anarkali" or a "laila"and the demise of his deep love affair developed the neoplasm of an undying agony. May be addiction to music and god worship had been a solace that saved him from his self-destruction. This is only my wild imagination, OK.
Might be his love was one sided, either way, or that had strong crash on him. In all probability, that was why he hated nuptials and remained a bachelor for such a long stretch of his life like a recluse. Some fragmentary evidence however remained buried unexplored here and there.
. ‘Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust Descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and–sans End!’
RUBAIYATH of Omar Qayyam.
No comments:
Post a Comment