Tabla Maestro Sibu Ji in Malaysia

For all of you tabla lovers out there there will be a tabla workshop/performance in Sabha House. Details are as follows:-
Date: Saturday, September 15, 2007
Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Location: Sabha House Conference Room
71 Jalan Maarof, Bangsar
Contact InfoPhone: 012 339 7281
Email: hargopal@gmail.com
Master Sarbjit Singh (Sibu Ji) will be showcasing his tabla and keyboard playing prowess at this performance. For those of you who were fortunate enough to catch his superb performance with Ghulam Abbas last Saturday, no introduction is necessary. For the rest of you, this show is not to be missed. The guy is truly inspiring.
Fee : RM20 only per person, to cover costs.

Gur Pooray Kirpa Dhari

I was looking forward to Saturday the 1st of September, 2007, for more reasons than one. Most importantly, my Little Darling (my pet name for her), Gurparkash Kaur, was turning 3. This is a picture of her in her ANGRY! pose. Gurparkash was born on the 300th anniversary of the Parkash Dihara of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, which fell on 1st September, 2004. The hukamnama, with which we were blessed at Gurparkash's naming Ardas, was Gur Pooray Kirpa Dhari, Prabh Poori Loch Hamari (The Perfect Guru Has Been Merciful, My Heart's Desires Are Fulfilled). Blessed with this wonderful hukam of the Guru, we decided to name her Gurparkash, a combination of the first word of the hukam and the blessed day of her birth.

So great were the blessings of the True and Perfect Guru, that Gurparkash's birthday celebrations had been intertwined with the Parkash Dihara of her Guru for the rest of her life. We normally celebrate her birthday with an event at the gurdwara. This year was no different. The Akhand Paath, in commemoration of the Parkash Dihara was being held at Tatt Khalsa Gurdwara, KL and we had a small diwan from 2 to 4pm in one of the smaller Darbar Sahib with Sukhmani Sahib recitation and some Kirtan, followed by ardas and hukamnama. After that, some delicious Tosai, samosaas, cake and cha were served to the Sangat. Gurparksh and older sister, Harsohela Kaur, also had fun sharing party packs with other kids present.

Later that day, we had a wonderful evening of Ghazals, Geets, Classical Khayals, Sufi Khayals and a few golden bollywood oldies with Ghulam Abbas Khan. We were truly lucky that a very gifted tabla maestro, Ustad Sarbjit Singh or better known as Sibu Ji, was on hand to accompany Khan saab. Sibu Ji was born without sight and his feat of mastering the tabla at a relatively young age of 28, is nothing short of being truly magnificent. The evening went on until late as Khan saab was flooded with requests of famous Ghazals and Bolloywood oldies which Khan saab readily obliged and delivered beautifully. He is a truly gifted and talented singer. As I watched Sibu Ji masterfully and flawlessly deliver the strokes of the tabla, I couldn't help but think of the irony of being guided through a beautiful world of rhythm and music by someone who is visually challenged. Well, he showed true vision in his performance that evening. This was a Saturday that will be remembered by all for a long long time.

An Evening of Ghazals and Geets

Anyone who knows me well, will know how much I love urdu and punjabi ghazals sung in semi-classical fashion. I grew up listening to and singing along with the soulful ghazals of "Fankaars" such as Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hassan, Pervez Mehdi, Anup Jalota, Jagjit Singh, Talat Aziz, Riaz & Imtiaz Ali Khan, even Pankaj Udhas in his early days(when he was not so commercial), and more recently Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Hariharan.

Late last week I got a call from a Singaporean friend of mine, Amarjeet Bajwa, who was calling from Melbourne, Australia. Some of you may recall a few years ago we had a young Sikh ghazal exponent, Jasvinder Singh, who performed a couple of shows in Malaysia and Singapore to launch his latest ghazal album, "Arsh". Amarjeet was the one who composed the music for that album. If you haven't heard that album, you have been missing out on something truly wonderful. Amarjeet has done an awesome job with the music which is blend of Indian classical/contemporary and even a bit of modern Jazz. Somehow that album always finds its way and stays in the cd changer of my car for long periods.

Amarjeet's call this time around was to introduce me to an old friend of his, a gentleman from Mumbai by the name of Ghulam Abbas Khan, who is a well known ghazal, sufi, classical vocalist and comes from a family of highly acclaimed musicians. Ghulam Abbas was in Melbourne to perform in a few ghazal shows and as good fortune would have it, he had a stop-over in KL enroute back to Mumbai. I immediately accepted Amarjeet's idea of organising a small ghazal mehfil for us to listen to this wonderful and gifted musician in a live setting. Despite the short time span my good friend Bhajan Singh, a remisier with TA Securities has been very helpful in getting the show together and we are hopeful it will be a success albeit on a small scale due to time constraints.

The details are as follows:-

Venue : SSU Club Aman

Date and Time : Saturday, 1st September, 2007 at 8 pm

Contribution : RM20 per pax to cover expenses.

There will be a short tea break in between and some light refreshments like mee hoon and samosaas will be served.

This promises to be an excellent and memorable musical evening. So guys please do come and join and do spread the word around to other Ghazal lovers. You can call/sms me to book a seat (012-2050664).

There, Its Done

A warm and spiritual
WAHEGURU JI KA KHALSA, WAHEGURU JI KI FATEH
to all Gursikhs and Warm Greetings to the rest of the cyberworld.
I hope that I will be able to put up some stuff here that is readable whilst sharing my thoughts and hoping to learn from the rest of you guys who are already veterans at this.
Please feel free to express your thoughts and ideas via comments. However profanity(in any language) is not welcome. If you have an uncontrollable urge to use 4 letter words, %$%* is an acceptable alternative.
I hope to keep it light and humourous. Please feel free to offer any advise that may improve this blog.

Cheers,
Belay