The song starts up; the keys of the harmonium, the beat of the tabla and I’m taken back to the late evenings spent at home on the couch with my dad listening to his favourite ghazals. The chorus builds up, my eyes closed under some sort of spell and I’m swaying my head as I take on the melody.
They say music is, as close to magic that mankind will ever get. A huge fan of Indian folk music, my father would often spend evenings listening to songs by Jagjit Singh, Ghulam Ali, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Mohammed Rafi and Osman Mir to name a few. He would sometimes get me, my brother and sisters to compile a playlist for him on YouTube and fall asleep to the contemplative and spiritual nature of the music. My father, Kishor Barot passed away in 2012 after a long battle with cancer. To me the music now serves as a soundtrack to my memories of him.
So on the last day of my trip to the Morari Bapu Ram Katha in Athens, they announced that there would be an evening concert of Osman Mir the following day. Without hesitation I rescheduled my flight. My mum and I sat together at the back of the venue moved by the spirit and atmosphere created by Osman Mir and his band. For those few hours we both felt a strong sense of nostalgia as we were taken back into our living room, sitting on the couch enjoying the music with dad. If this isn’t magic, I don’t know what is. For this I can’t thank enough the Popat family and everybody else involved in organizing such a wonderful katha.
Compared to early 70s, though detection of cancer, recovery and life expectancies have increased, it can still be treated as an epidemic. Veejaiyata lost her father to cancer in 2012.
