Out of body experience

"Dude, there's a concert on this evening. You're on right?...Good good."

And yet again thanks to Pablo, I was mesmerized, held in thrall & transported to another world. A world of melody, romance, soul, colours and so many other emotions & feelings. Irshad Khan played with just 50 of us sitting in rapt attention, about 10 feet away from the maestro. And in this case, the tag maestro well & truly doesn't do justice. He is the nephew of the late great Ustad Vilayat Khan, one of the 2 contemporary pioneers of the Sitar along with Pandit Ravi Shankar.



The concert was originally scheduled for 2 hours but with a little coaxing from the audience, Khan-saab played on for an incredible 3 1/2 hours with just a 15 minute break in between. What made this concert special was his unique blend of sitar & vocals, an unexplainably beautiful thumri, select compositions, some of which date back 400 years & best of all, a performance on the Surbahar: a unique bass sitar. The first concert of 2007...and it'll take a lot to match this one. Shakti, Ustad Shahid Parvez and now Irshad Khan...I am truly blessed.