All These Colors Tour: India Part 45
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Delhi, India
As usual, I got a really late start today, heading out of the Hotel Krishna around 5:30 pm. over to a concert I saw advertised at the Ramakrishna Mission, just West of the Main Bazaar in Paharganj. I arrived just in the nick of time to catch a performance by Sufi singer Janah Mir Mukhtiyar Ali, accompanied by a backup singer and two tabla players. Having never heard of the man before, I just showed up for lack of anything better to do, other than walk around and snap photos, like always. This Mukhtiyar man is a really talented singer with a light, soaring voice and a very happy, crowd-pleasing demeanor. He’s the total opposite of Pandit Pran Nath, a Hindustani classical singer with a very austere and severe voice, a teacher of the Kirana Gharana school, and one of my favorite vocalists of all time.
In a piece on Pran Nath, Alexander Keefe perfectly described the difference: “Some ragas are light-footed maidens dancing through springtime, at play on swings in the flowered groves along the Yamuna riverbank; Pandit Pran Nath’s are cremation grounds, the blue-black color of smoke rising softly from the smoldering log of a sadhu’s fire, the moon on the mountainside.” After about 45 minutes of Mukhtiyar, my stomach protested all of the colorful aural puffery and demanded to be filled, so I recalled that the Brown Bread Bakery has a location in Paharganj and headed over there for a plate of their delicious pasta and baguette slices. Afterward, I ran across two of those guys who carry around a sheet to collect donations while blasting tunes from a radio. I’m not sure what exactly the funds are for, but I contributed for the right to shoot a short clip.
Roll over photos for captions.
Words and photos ©2012 Arcane Candy.
Leave a Reply