On 4 September 2022, lucky Sydneysiders were treated to a ghazal bonanza, by none other than the living legend Pankaj Udhas, in the newly renovated Sydney Opera House, to a full house.
Pankaj Udhas needs no introduction. The Padmashree award winner has dominated the ghazal scene for 40 years. In fact, he is commemorating his 40th year in ghazal this year.
At the outset, he dedicated the concert to two of his now departed friends, Mr Lodhia (Senior) and Lata Mangeshkar. Mr. Lodhia, from Fiji, had struck up good friendship with Pankaj in the 80s and had organised Pankaj Udhas concerts in Fiji, out of his passion for ghazal. His sons, Akash & Akshay, decided to carry on their father’s tradition and are the promoters of the Sydney concert, making it possible for Pankaj to celebrate his 40th anniversary in style. People from interstate, from Fiji & New Zealand had attended the concert. Pankaj also paid tribute to the great Lataji calling her his spiritual guru.
Pankaj kicked off by singing his first ever song which he recorded in 1970 and his first ever recorded ghazal in 1980.
Pankaj has in his repertoire a few ghazals around “sharab” & “nasha” for which he is popular. A section of the audience was constantly goading him to sing such songs. Pankaj joked that his audience always kept a close an eye on him whenever he reached for a drink, during his singing, and assured them that the drink was not alcohol. Pankaj played to the gallery and sang several his sharab songs and cheekily finished by singing the “Thodi thodi piya karo”message.
He recounted a humorous anecdote. Once, he received a call from Jalandhar. He assumed it would be regarding a request for his concert. Instead, the caller requested him to come to Jalandhar urgently to deal with one of his fans, Arun Khurana. The fan was disturbing the peace by playing one of Pankaj Udhas’ ghazals repeatedly. He had refused to stop playing it unless Pankaj Udhas personally came over to Jalandhar and pressed the stop button on his cassette player.
Pankaj sportingly paid a visit to Jalandhar and in a formal function he stopped the cassette player and brought relief to the neighbourhood. When Pankaj asked Arun as to how many times he had listened to the same ghazal, Mr. Khurana took out his logbook and informed that he had heard the “Na Kajre ki Dhar” 60,000 times. Now, Arun Khurana is in the Limca Book of Records for this feat.
Pankaj was ably supported by his team of seven musicians on keyboard, dholak, guitar, table, flute, violin, mandolin and his sound and lighting engineers, who were superb. The excellent audio and lighting display added to the magic of the evening. The proceeding was well conducted by the MC, which was the cherry on the top of the cake
During one of his renditions, Pankaj was overwhelmed by the words in the ghazal he was singing and had to choke back his emotions, for which he apologised, moving a few people in the audience to tears. A true display of the power of ghazal.
In a one-on-one interview with The Indian Sun, Pankaj Udhas admitted that ghazal art form is facing competition from Bollywood songs, Indian & Western pop music, social media, OTT streaming platforms etc but it had managed to maintain many faithful followers. Pankaj has several programs for promoting ghazal to keep the art form alive and for the next generation to carry the baton from him.
The highlight of the concert was the classic, “Chitthi ayi hai” ghazal—a soulful song everyone in the audience could relate to. It was goosebumps moment when he sang, “Pachhi pijaraa tod ke aaja, desh paraya chhod ke aaja, aaja umar bahut hai chhoti, apne ghar mein bhi hai roti.”
Pankaj took the opportunity to release his new album Forever Ghalib on stage in the presence of the Consulate General of India. He also gave away CDs of his album to every member in the audience. Pankaj thanked the audience calling them his “oxygen” and the concert finished with a standing ovation for him.
Judging by the composition of the audience, both young and old, and the tickets having sold out four months before the concert date, there is hope that the ghazal flame will keep burning bright into the future.
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On 4 September 2022, lucky Sydneysiders were treated to a ghazal bonanza, by none other than the living legend Pankaj Udhas, in the newly renovated Sydney Opera House, to a full house. #TheIndianSunhttps://t.co/HxTY1JY7wU
— The Indian Sun (@The_Indian_Sun) September 9, 2022
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