Today's Singers

Mr Chatterjee a retired public sector engineer was a regular friend of the library. His only daughter is a scientist under a DST organization and currently pursuing research in Germany. Mr Chatterjee is an ardent follower of Indian classical music . Due to his generosity I possess quite a few copies of DVD from his wonderful collection . Of late Mr Chatterjee’s visit to the library had become rare.In fact I had not seen him for quite sometime and was wondering what had become of the jovial man . Then I received his call on my office number. He had been robbed of his mobile while travelling in a city minibus . The mobile thief apparently was a good looking well dressed young woman. Anybody who’s lost a mobile would know how you can be completely cut off from your lifeline by a single stroke of such bad luck.
Mr Chatterjee had called to ask whether I would be interested in attending a classical music concert next Saturday. The discussion moved to relative quality of present and past singers and performers. A connoisseur like him found it difficult to enjoy today’s genre of loud ,instrument based singing. He mentioned how he had admired Shreya Ghoshal’s performance in a private programme years back when Shreya was still a small girl and had not reached today’s celebrity status. He had heard Shreya recently and was hugely disappointed .According to him yester year’s singers were more serious about riyaz .
Well personally I do not understand the finer nuances of classical music but can tell the difference between X singer and Pandit Jasraj. However I am hugely impressed by some of the young talents of today. Indian television is deluged with music based reality shows. Sometimes you do come across ethereal singing but most of it is sheer trash. I do feel talent is not confined to any age or time. It can take different forms of expression but one can definitely separate the wheat from the chaff. Whatever touches your soul is great music .And what touches your soul can be highly subjective