Commonwealth - My Ishtyle

Courtsey : Times of India
Saif Khan & Rani Mukherjee performing at the closing ceremony of Commonwealth Games in Melbourne on Sunday,March 26.

Kiran Ahluwalia

Recently got a chance to attend Kiran Ahluwalia's concert.Fellow citizens who don't know her have to look at her accomplishments and her music.

Kiran Ahluwalia was born in India but raised in New Zealand & Canada.Leaving a career on Bay Street to become a ghazal singer in Canada was a risky proposition by all means but she is an example of what a determined will can achieve .

A determined will can sell full houses and make a firangi crowd hear and admire your talent.Making a living with Indian music in western world an impossible feat but she has achieved it.....
That's what Kiran Ahluwalia stands for. Her achievements are beyond boundaries....

She is not only a singer but an interpretor of the great music she sings and composes.Interpreting Urdu ghazals in english for her non hindi speaking audience was the highlight of the concert.The audience transitions between her quick wit and flawless melodies of Ghazals & Punjabi folk songs.

She has not only made music her passion and career but I'm also amazed by the number of fans she has among non hindi speaking Canadians.Most of her ghazals are written by expatriats in Canada.

In one of her recent albums she has collaborated with great Celtic fiddler Natalie Macmaster.A rising jazz guitarst Rez Abbasi often accompanies her at the concert.

Kiran is a combination of Jagjit Singh & Reshma in one.She has joined their ranks as an artist who has reinvented ghazal with time and made it immortal ....

One of my favorite ghazals sung by Kiran Ahluwalia goes as below :
Lyrics By Rasheed Nadeem (Rashid drives a cab in Toronto)

Kina nere ho ho baithan, fair ve doori reh jan di ai
Oodi maree yari vali, ghazal adhuri reh jan di ai

Ruh kalboot deh sare panchhi, ik ik kar kai ud jan dai nen
Pinjara khali ho jan da ai, hath wich choori reh jan di ai

Sara sona rul janda ai, miti deh wich dhul jan da ai
Nam we apna bhul jandai ai, sab mashhuri reh jan di ai

Yaar Nadeem eh ilma, amla kisnu paar langaya eh
Rah de vich he kidre sajna eh mazdoori reh jandi eh

Translation:
Regardless of how close I sit to my lover
there is still a distance between us,
and so my love song remains unsung.

My soul leaves my body like a bird takes flight.
Despite all my riches I feel the isolation of an empty cage.

What value is my fame if
before my love I cannot recall my own name.

O Nadeem, what value are my knowledge and good deeds
if this labour is left behind when my soul leaves.

Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters)

A story of people who bore the brunt of the partition .... whose life were partitioned into two distinctly different phases .... where they were forced to turn away from their previous lives to start a new one living with the ghost of the life they had known...

A movie.... a woman's perspective on partition... and how she suffers silently yet again at the hands of people she loves.....

A take on political / religious fanatism to involve unsuspecting youth in the name of religion.....

A woman (Ayesha played by Kirron Kher)... for whom a well of water symbolises death ... not life ... yet she is forced to drink the water from the same well that was the grave of her mother and sister .......

How people on the other side chose of think of her as dead for their own peace of mind ........
How she was without a religion as she was not good enough for any... ??
She questions .. which heaven she will go to ...

A man .... who left his wife on the other side.... still hopes for her to be alive....but observes her death anniversary every year ..

A statement on people lost in two worlds..... trying to make sense in the insanity that we call life today....

Kudos to Sabiha Sumar for creating such a riveting piece....

The Constant Gardner

I read somewhere ....."It's easy to fight for our principles than to live up to them". Here is the story of Tessa Quayle in Kenya fighting the international pharmaceutical giants and their ruthless practices of drug testing on human guniea pigs.

It's a brilliant adaptation of John le Carre's novel by the same title. It has some brilliant acting by Rachel Weisz & Ralph Fiennes and some breathtaking cinematography of beautiful Kenya .

But I will watch this movie again for the amazing music score by Alberto Iglesias.Some tracks are by Kenyan musician Ayub Ogada.The music has rich blending of the African sound.

Despite being a thriller the music is very calm, soothing and some tracks very sad.

Indians of the Week

Little girl VP Rubiya from a small town defies all odds and refuses to dance to anyone tune than hers.

Fired 'Apprentice' candidate Raj Peter Bhakta is running for the Congress.He is on the dark side of the force........that story some other day.