BY KAVITA CHHIBBER

It has been a musical journey where his path was not paved with gold, but Pankaj Udhas simplified ghazal gayaki, while retaining its beauty, and made it a household name. As Mark Premji rightly put it-he also made it user friendly especially for the Gujarati community.

His velvety and youthful voice belies the fact that he is marking his 25th year in music. On 5th March Mark Premji Promotions presented the master musician at Earthlink Live. Pankaj Udhas enthralled an enthusiastic Atlanta crowd in an evening filled with his popular hits and anecdotes from his life. Atlanta and Mark Premji have a special place in Pankaj Udhas’s heart.. He recalled the times when Mark and he would hang out together with a bunch of friends at a Bombay restaurant on Warden road. “We were all around 20 and Mark was this tall handsome young man from a very well known affluent family and would show up in the evening and all the girls would go gaga over him. He has always loved music and was himself part of a band, being a good musician. We both went to the same college. We would all spend time together and those memories are still fresh in my mind. He and I just have this special bond where I don’t have to say anything and he knows exactly what I need, and how to do things. Then we lost touch for many years, until the Moranis mentioned that Mark had started doing shows in the late 90s and later they told me Mark wanted to do a national tour with me. It has been a wonderful reunion and we did a fantastic tour in 2001.” Udhas also went on to say that there are some cities where you just feel so confident that you will always have a wonderful audience and Atlanta is one such city for him. It was very obvious what he was referring to when he began the show. People knew the lyrics of each and every song of his, be it popular hits from films or ghazals. “It is just the most amazing feeling to see that and I was deeply touched and grateful. They were singing with me.”

Pankaj Udhas began the evening by telling the audience that in a night of couplets, verses and melody, he was also going to share stories about his life. He talked about how when he was working on his first album Sahar after 10 years of struggling to make it, he went over budget by 18000 rupees a princely sum in the 1980s and a girl who he was dating chipped in and helped and later the lovely Farida and he became husband and wife. 1981 saw him release the hit album Mukarar and he hasn’t looked back since then. That night for over three hours his velvet voice enthralled the audience with all of the favorite numbers, from film songs like Jiyen to Jiyen kaise bin aapke, to thodi thodi piya karo, la pila de sakiya, ghungroo toot gaye, jheel mein chand nazar aya, Ishq nachaye jisko yaar, and the ever popular Chitthi aye hai watan se. Pankaj also sang the beautiful number that gave famous poet Qateel Shifai the highest royalty among the lyrics that have been penned by him and used by singers in India-Chandi jaisa rang hai tera.

In between Pankaj Udhas regaled the audience with stories about his life as a musician, sharing anecdotes and jokes that lit the auditorium with laughter. Sipping some water, he said ghazal singers for some reason are always perceived as inebriated, and that they can’t sing without boozing. Once Pankaj was performing in Punjab and it was very hot. As he downed half a glass of water in one gulp, a man sitting in the front row said to his friend “Now that he has downed half a peg, we will surely have fun and the music will be wonderful.” Pankaj said, in truth when a musician comes on stage, to perform, his work is his prayer and when you pray you don’t need to drink. As for intoxication, that comes from the appreciation of a loving audience. The people in Atlanta, quite a few of whom weren’t praying and had imbibed more than a few pegs went wild at his comment and cheered with gusto. Pankaj soon had a lot of them dancing in the aisles with his faster numbers. It was fascinating to see people singing along with him, non stop. Pankaj sang a medley of songs then took as many requests as he could in the limited time. The only sour note in the whole affair was a couple of drunk audience members shouting inane stuff and one of them making a loud phone call seated in the front row, with security no where in sight. Pankaj took it in his stride with his usual graciousness. His musical accompanists were the cream of the crop with outstanding talent of Rakesh Chaurasia on flute. Chaurasia is the nephew of maestro Hariprasad Chaurasia and there were some beautiful pieces rendered by him throughout the evening that drove the audience wild. The rich legacy of legendary tabla maestro Ahmed Jaan Thirakwa was visible in the finger tips of his nephew Rashid Mustafa Thirakwa who did several segments with Chaurasia that were beautiful. Rajendra Seth, Nasir Sajjad Hussain, Anupam Chatterjee were all outstanding as well.

It was again a night to remember and people were still humming the magical melodies as they streamed out of the auditorium.