An enchanting evening

December 19th Sunday: Yesterday evening I went to the Science City to attend the program of Aashish Khan and Zakir Hussain. The enchanting evening of classical rendition was a tribute to two of India’s greatest maestros Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Allah Rakha.

I missed the lunch with Zakir Hussain at the Mani Mansions restaurant but made it up by meeting him backstage at the Science City auditorium. It had the pleasure of honouring both Zakir and Aashish with garland and shawl on the stage (picture). I wanted to sit through the whole concert but was pressed for time due to other commitments.

From the Science City I went to The Oberoi Grand Hotel ballroom where an adda session with Lala da – Buddhadeb Guha – was organised by some of his friends and well wishers. After meeting Lala da and spending an hour I went to a friend’s place for dinner at South City. There I met two very interesting persons from San Fransciso one of them, Rana da, is the nephew of Jyoti Basu. I also met Shama Rahman who is a Rabindra Sangeet exponent from Bangladesh.

By the time I called it a day it was well past midnight stretching almost to the wee hours. I missed two different parties one at the Peerless Inn Hotel and the other at a South City Mall restaurant.

In the hectic evening schedule the memorable part was the time spent with Amala Shankar at the backstage lounge of Science City auditorium. At 90, she is still active. As we talked, I realised that her words carry great wisdom her words carry like she said that there are only two castes in the world – man and woman. Her approach towards life has always been very different and continues to be so.

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